Poll

[amjayee]

Good post, Leland. I agree mostly.

I think the many different ways of winning would be mostly for scenarios. The "main game", the "endless" clash of civilizations will usually go on and on, until the world ends (or something ) or if some player really utterly destroys others, or manages to make a lasting worldwide alliance. And I think at least the last one is higly unlikely in a multiplayer game. By reaching some goals, like the ones Leland listed could be considered "minor victories" and might give the player bonuses in the game. It would just be disappointing if a game played for months just ends suddenly.

[ElmoTheElk]

Well, you've got an issue there! Does the game suddely ends? If not, what events result in the ending of a game?
While thinking about that I only come to the conclusion that this is more difficult then I thought. We could implent just an end of the game (the year 2200?), but then the game still suddenly end...

Elmo

[TempLeland]

True, the game shouldn't just end abruptly. And most goals should be achievable without ending the game, especially the "special" goals like engineering projects or wonders (or whatever will resemble wonders most in the game). But I think that for each game a set of goals could be defined as a form of conditions which cause the game to end. To avoid abrupt ending, maybe the exit conditions could also incorporate a warning level? Conditions which would cause a notification for all players that the game is about to end. For example, when an engineering project is initiated it would serve as a warning, or if one civ gains 90% of whatever was needed to end the game.

So, to end the game would be kind of optional. Long multiplayer games could go on indefinitely. I think that the end conditions are more important in scenarios.

How about scoring? Should there be one universal scoring method, or should each score be comparable only to the particular game and scenario options?

Leland

[The Joker]

I agree with Leland and Amjayee on this ending issue. Often the history mp games would go on and on (obviously there would be an end to the new advances you could discover). But if you wanted to, for scenarios or whatever, you could have a victory mode.

There should be several types of victory. Economic, cultural, military, diplomatic etc.

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"If you are to hurt someone you better do it so good that you don't have to fear revenge."
- Machiavelli

GGS Website

[ElmoTheElk]

So a game wont end when you have victory, even in single player? And in Multiplayer: on a certain point, there are no more new things to do and will it be fun then?

[The Joker]

Agreed, one game will not be fun forever.

But the question is whether to give it a fixed ending, or just let it slide away. A truly great examble of the latter being succesful if done right is Sim City.

But I am not saying that we should necessarily do it like that. I think opening up for both possibilities is the best thing to do at this point.

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"If you are to hurt someone you better do it so good that you don't have to fear revenge."
- Machiavelli

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

Well, game should definitely have an End.
Civing the SimCity way ... is no way to Civ.

I mean, can the score, some number, like 1489756 be as good as destroying enemy capital? and second largest city? and all cities on the map but yours?

[RonHiler]

Wait, I'm confused.

I thought y'all were designing a massive multiplayer civ type game, with rises and falls of empires and all that (which, BTW, I think is a very cool idea).

That doesn't seem conductive to having an "end" or a "winner" as such. It seems to me civs will join and leave regularly. Has this changed? I think maybe I don't understand the concept of this game like I originally thought I did

Ron

[ElmoTheElk]

We are making an multiplayer and single player game. So no massive multiplayer (for now). In single player mode, there is an winning conditions and the game ends then. The question now is if we have an ending in multiplayer mode, since you can't get on and on with one game, even if the empires rise anf fall. There is no new tech, units and other stuff.

Give you opinion about it! We love to read (well, not TOO much of course...).
ElmoTheElk

[VetLegion]

No Ron, you got it right

We are at the moment talking a lot about massive multiplayerism and stuff. But I myself like to have both feet on the ground most of the time, plus I think it would be exceptionally annoying to play only a part of the game (such as in MMP). Rise and fall (ok, fall) would give me a hart attack or something, no mistake

[TempLeland]

Thsi definitely won't be massively multiplayer game, it's just impossible with the current scope and scale. The number of players probably won't exceed 10-20, but there will be no other hard-coded limit except the computing power available for the server. But otherwise, multiplayer will be slightly more important than the single player game because it will be implemented first and because creating a decent AI is damn difficult.

The multiplayer game will be "open" so that new players can hop in at any point. Though this aspect of the game can be configured as well, I'm sure. The rise and fall idea is necessary to make this possible, otherwise the old civs would have an unfair advantage compared to the new ones. A clever player should be able to rise to power regardless of the time when he starts the game, and because there is a limited land area available some other civs will have to make room. The problematic aspects of how the civs will stay up when the player is not overlooking and how exactly new civs will arise in already populated world are not exactly solved yet, but I'm sure we can come up with something.

The stuff I most like about Civ is the development. Discovering new land, new tech, new trade routes, new improvements. This will end at some point, and the same is the case with GGS. That's why I think multiplayer games lasting forever are definitely not the only aspect, players want to reset the clock every now and then and start from scratch. The number of players is perhaps too large to leave the ending of the game entirely to mutual agreement, so in the beginning of the game it should be possible to configure all kinds of ending conditions. Scoring will probably be used just to figure out the "winner", I am not convinced that scores can even be compared between differently configured games.

Leland

[korn469]

well i have two suggestions to help increase the time one player can play the game...

1. science upkeep: all technology needs a certain number of science points allocated to it each turn or understanding of that concept will deteriorate until that technology becomes unusable...if you are on the brink of building a near room temperature superconducting maglev train and then suddenly an epidemic wipes out 80% of your population (including scientist) then suddenly that advance might go from months to decades away

2. map upkeep: if you don't send any units (including trade units) to an area for long enough your knowledge of an area would slowly fade out until that area becomes unexplored again

korn469

[amjayee]

Korn is right here; the key idea in the tech system is, that it requires also some science to preserve the discovered technology. Most other things should go similarly; backward steps could occur just as steps forward. This is only realistic, and would give new challenges to the long games; you would start over again. Also this could solve the game ending issue. Since we start counting time from 0 and don't use our chronology, the players don't have any reference to our history. The new history could have dark ages just as ours. Perhaps each civ could start its own chronology from 0, so the year could be different for different civs?? Then there would be also a global year of course. Then, one of the game conditions could be allied victory; when all players agree to draw to game, the game could end. Usually this would happen when all technology has been discovered. If some players don't agree to draw, there could be a world war to wipe out those reluctant players, and that might create a new dark age, and the game could continue if players wish...

[The Joker]

Well, I hope we will, Ron.

The R&F part we are including. But mmp is pretty hard to create, and we don't know how possible it will be with the complexity we are having. So it is not what we are focusing on now. At the moment we are creating a mp game with as many players as we can fit into it (honestly, none of us have any idea how many this is - Leland's estimate of 10-20 might be better than my 100 player max, but we are not by any means sure). Sp and mmp is for later.

About the ending of the game. I agree that an end is a good thing. I always felt a bit down when my SimCity game just faded away, since it became less and less fun.

But a world conquest fits very poorly with R&F. Personally I think world conquest should be impossible. What should be possible is for one player to be superior in many areas, and then invite (or force) all the other civs to join him as protectorates. But both military power and diplomatic wiz should be needed to do this. A truly large project could also be used as a victory mode. And an economic victory, where one player controls a large percentage of the vast majority of all goods (in one way or the other) in the world. Or a cultural victory, where one player convinces all of the people of the world to eat McDonalds and drink Coke every day.

There are loads of possibilities, and they should propably all be related somehow. But they should still be more advanced and complex than simply conquoring the world. Plus when creating a game it should be possible to turn any one of them on or off, which could make it possible to play a game with no end at all.

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"If you are to hurt someone you better do it so good that you don't have to fear revenge."
- Machiavelli

GGS Website

[TempLeland]

I don't think technical development goes backwards as much as forwards. After a certain point, constant improvement is almost inevitable, barring catastrophies. Once something has been invented and spread to the world, getting rid of that knowledge would mean killing nearly everyone on the planet. On the other hand, are there instances of decaying technology in the history? I cannot think of anything... maybe the middle ages caused a minor setback for Europe, but still the arabic countries kept up the mathematical knowledge, for example.

This "destroy the world" theme brings me to another point: there is at least one certain way to end the game which cannot be directly disabled. Total extinction of all humans. If there is the technology, then it is possible. Though I am not sure if the game will have technology that advanced...

Leland