OpenCiv3 - The Title

[korn469]

i'm glad you guys liked my idea and the name that i suggested...here is another slightly obvious idea

this game should be scored, and in doing scoring every turn you should rack up some points...so at the end of the game the player who created one stupendous civilization could just barely be edged out by another player who created a number of smaller but still successful civilizations

what would be wondeful if players came to cherish the world they helped to create over the years...just imagine starting out at the begining of civilization and helping to shape a completely unique world, unlike any other...with every game having a great number of suprising, but always creating that "just one more turn" feeling in it's players

korn469

[amjayee]

Everything here sounds great. About an empire collapsing, I agree that usually they don't just collapse; usually the destruction comes in form of a conqueror, usually preceded by disasters weakening the empire; famines, diseases and natural or economic disasters.

I agree we need a stagnation model. The reason why Europeans were the ones who have built the current glory of human civilization was, that Rome united the whole continent under one advanced culture; when Rome fell, many smaller, equally powerful nations were born. They have fought for supremacy for 1500 years, in the meantime causing massive advancements in technology and culture. Competition is something that creates progress. Not only military competition, but also scientific and cultural competition. China didn't have any challengers, so they became isolationists and self-sufficient. Somewhere around years 1500-1600 China was massively superior over all European countries in every way, but isolationism stagnated their advancement, and eventually Europeans came as conquerors.

I also agree with other things, but economy, diseases etc. are already our focus points. They need to remain that way.

I DL'd the Starknights demo, it sounded good. I will play it tonight to find out more, and comment then.

I agree a scoring system is needed; player needs to be rewarded for his glorious actions, and reminded of his mistakes so he will learn from them. I think we definitely need some kind of history book system, so player can review the events of his world; as Korn said, the intention should be to build world, not just a civilization.

Overall, all this sounds really cool. Just some hard work, and I'm sure we will make a really great game. It will take some time, two years at minimum, but when we have laid the foundation, it will be easier.

[The Joker]

Amjayee, I think you are the one with most contact with the programmers. Could you mail them and tell them about the possible new title for our game?

------------------
"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club

[The Joker]

I have sent a mail to Vetlegion, Heardie and Victor. I have also sent one to Jacob (I think he is from Denmark, too - weird that I never realized that). I wanted to sent one to Dan, but I don't know what his mail adress is. Is there anyone who can help me with that?

------------------
"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club

[amjayee]

I can mail Dan. About Starknights, for some reason it keep crashing on my computer when I try to start a ne game. I will keep trying.

[ElmoTheElk]

Hi there! I'm back from my holiday so I can contribute to the project again. I am currently thinking about a whole new design for the web page as I am not that happy with the current one.

But about the name, Guns, Gems and Steel: Tools of Conquest. I think it's great. Escpacially the subtitle is very good. I can use that for the new web design.

To korn: I have heard that the others missed you, so: Welcome back.

[The Joker]

After mailing Jacob I recieved a mail saying that his mailbox was full, so the mail couldn't be delivered. It could be filled with old Sourceforge and Egroups mails, which propably means that he has abandoned it

But I also recieved a mail from Heardie. He is still interested in the project and thinks it is a great name. He is pretty buisy right now, but in a few weeks he should be ready to continue developing the game

------------------
"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club

[ElmoTheElk]

Just a little weird question: What will be the official shortening for Guns, Germs & Steel: Tools Of Conquest? GG&S, G2S, GG&S: ToC, GGS:ToC? Or a combination?

My vote is GG&S I think.
[This message has been edited by ElmoTheElk (edited September 05, 2000).]

[heardie]

So amjayee do you still no where to get free domain names that forward it to another site

if sos w should try get gungerms&steel, (or ggs, or gunsgermsteel, or gungermsandsteel, whatever)

[amjayee]

About game's abbreviation, I prefer the simple GGS or GGS:ToC. About domain names, there are dozens of sites that offer .com, .net and .gov domains, but those are not free. They cost something less than 100 dollars, so we would need to find someone who would like to pay that... and he should have a credit card, because that seems to be the only payment method they accept. I don't think we can have our own domain anywhere for free.

But there are also free services, that register subdomain names, like ggs.domain.net or something like that. One of these services is www.cjb.net. They offer a service, that forwards url searches to something.cjb.net to the site of your choice, and the cjb's address remains visible in the url window. There might be others, too.
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited September 04, 2000).]

[RonHiler]

You have to register your domain name. Last I checked, it costs about $40 (U.S.) per year, but you have to pay for the first two years in advance (although I think they just recently changed prices, so this might be wrong now). Then you need a server. There are various server services out there. Some are even free if you're willing to put a banner ad on your page. Just remember you get what you pay for We use Apollo hosting, which I've been pretty happy with.

We pay $21 per month for ours. For this price we get tons more disk space than we will ever use, some POP email accounts, access to the CGI scripts, etc. It's a good deal. You can check them out at http://www.apollohosting.com/ if you like.

If you declare as a business, you can write these expenses off on your taxes at the end of the year

Oh, you're not allowed to put a '&' character in your domain name, so GG&S won't work (We tried. Our company name is R&J Cyberware, but the domain had to be RJCyberware.com).

Of course, Amjayee is right, if you don't mind an extra .something. in your domain name, you can get all of this for free.

Ron

[The Joker]

About the name, I agree with Amjayee, that GGS or GGS:ToC is best.

About the website, I guess I would be willing to pay the money it costs to get a domain name. It is not that much after all. Maybe if we could put some banner on the site I could get some of the money I payed back?

I think that the website should be just the name as we say it: gunsgermsandsteel.

------------------
"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club

[ElmoTheElk]

About the web site: I made a new design and uploaded it to http://www.pekok.demon.nl/gg&s/
Let me know if you like this or the previous more (http://www.pekok.demon.nl/openciv3). Of cource the title will be changed to Guns, Germs and Steel.

About the abbreviation: I like ggs the most now. The website adress would be www.gunsgermsandsteel.com

Talking about the website: There is a free .com provider (!) called NameZero. (www.namezero.com) They give you a free .com domain, pop-e-mail and pop-e-mail-forwarding (... I like the --- ...) Only problem here is that there is a huge banner on the main site AND the domain name is not officially yours. (So they can sell it any time). The banner can be banned :-) by redirecting to an other page not there server on the main page. (As done in www.g-a-m-p.com.)

They don't give any web hoting, but I have a solution for that too. I have 20mb of web space for my own, as I am subscriped to Demon NL (my ISP) and I don't use (all of) that. I can use (a section of) the space fot the web site, I won't mind. Only, I will be the only one who will have acces to this account of course, as it is mine (and I pay for it).

An other option is the current sourceforge server. I thought the current web site is already on this server right? Without any banners.

[ElmoTheElk]

About the web site: I made a new design and uploaded it to http://www.pekok.demon.nl/gg&s/
Let me know if you like this or the previous more (http://www.pekok.demon.nl/openciv3). Of cource the title will be changed to Guns, Germs and Steel.

About the abbreviation: I like ggs the most now. The website adress would be www.gunsgermsandsteel.com

Talking about the website: There is a free .com provider (!) called NameZero. (www.namezero.com) They give you a free .com domain, pop-e-mail and pop-e-mail-forwarding (... I like the --- ...) Only problem here is that there is a huge banner on the main site AND the domain name is not officially yours. (So they can sell it any time). The banner can be banned :-) by redirecting to an other page not there server on the main page. (As done in www.g-a-m-p.com.)

They don't give any web hoting, but I have a solution for that too. I have 20mb of web space for my own, as I am subscriped to Demon NL (my ISP) and I don't use (all of) that. I can use (a section of) the space fot the web site, I won't mind. Only, I will be the only one who will have acces to this account of course, as it is mine (and I pay for it).

An other option is the current sourceforge server. I thought the current web site is already on this server right? Without any banners.

[amjayee]

Now the page is more like it! Well done, Elmo! It actually looks like "steel", somehow. Perhaps the title could be exploited even more in the appearance of the page? Generally, I think grey is a good general color. The typos in the title are a bit annoying, but it doesn't matter. Also the abbreviation should perhaps be changed to the version suggested by me and Joker - or what do you think? Would GGS: ToC be okay?