52 replies to this topic

[Juni Ori]

I'm halfway of thinking of rules to a strategy game, which we could play here. You know, like pnp-rpg, but online and strategy? And I'll take care of rules, GM:ing etc.

Idea is quite simple: conquer the made-up "ancient" world - however this won't be easy. I was thinking of something like two turns per week - as my work is certainly getting every now and then in the way - but if it becomes possible, more turns per week might be possible.

Question: is anyone in any level interested?

[Aristharus]

Sounds like online Diplomacy. Only there's usually just one turn per week. This does make the games last for some 3-6 months, though. The shorter ones, that is, I've seen longer.

[Juni Ori]

Actually I was thinking of a neverending game. I have some radical ideas for this game. One for example, you can be not only head of the state, but governor, minister, or maybe even religious leader in someone else's empire - loyal, it's up to you, when you choose to rebel... But, most importantly, I want people to discuss about the game and tell here what they want and think about my ideas and rules, when I have the time to finish and write them here. Of course suggestions are welcome already!

One important factor in the game is national unity. If you conquer your rival's nation, vassalage is the easiest way to control it. If you annex the nation, then dissidents will cause you trouble. Ruled by their earlier lord, they are far more happy. And dissidency will be affected by many factors. It's up to player to balance his empire!

[Aristharus]

Sounds ambitious.. You'll have a hard time making up rules that can make a game like this work. The idea of different player roles is cool, but you'll have to give every role some control over something, as well as a reason to use that control, and as the game will probably be based around war, it might be hard to balance all of those. So writing the rules on stuff like that will be hard.

If it'll be more free-form, Pen and paper RPG-like, you as the GM can of course determine every action as the players try it so everything won't need rules, but that won't be very easy for you either.

I'm interested to see what you come up with and how it works out, though.

[Juni Ori]

I am aiming to keep the rules easy and understandable, however complex enough, so players can really influence their nations. Different roles are actually somewhat easy to implement with my ideas, I believe. One way to encourage the use of minions is to have direct efficiency penalty, growing progressively the more you rule directly - which adds a little realism, but I'm not quite sure about it.

Anyways, there will be random encounters and player's personal effect on evenst. Like trying to ensure your populations loyalty towards you: if you stay in your capital - which of course will have it's good sides - you can't influence far regions as well.

Actually I'm very close to implement personal attributes to bring more rpg in it and one important factor is of course your age. You'll die eventually and without heir, your empire is split to rebelling factions, wherein there's chance to even take more players in it! Of course heir will have some problems ensuring their rule, as it will be easiest moment to stir things up - unless ruler seriously messes his/her empire up! Heir will of course remain under same player's control - but his/her siblings won't! And siblings will have their own supporters among population. Herein takes place charisma, for example.

Other attributes would include at least command, melee, health and economy. Commanding troops yourself can be good idea, if you don't have any better general; fighting with your troops would give your troops morale boost, but would risk you; poor health could kill you already before age of 40 and good health could make you survive many woundings (which would certainly reduce your life expectancy); and economy would give you more profit and resources!

One more important factor would be diplomacy. NO ONE will limit your PM'ing and making deals in secret, I don't even have to know about them. Remember Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. You could move your troops into anyones territory, but he would decide what to do, if entering army doesn't attack? Attack, ignore, supply... If entering army on the other hand attacks, then there would be other choises, like entering battlefield, withdrawing to castle, withdrawing to next province...

And one idea I have still, but I'm not sure I'm going to even mention it yet, not to mention implementing it. People might like the idea of neverending game, but if not, that idea has no potential. Let's just mention it's like level-up...

Current project name will be Never Ending War. It will be something NEW!

[Sinke]

Very nice idea.

There was that old "Earth 2025" strategy game I used to play, directly through the browser. It took a lot of time, because I was  checking my online country every 5 seconds.

[Aristharus]

It still sounds pretty hard to implement and GM effectively. I'd advise you to try and keep the rules as simple as possible. The simpler the rules, the more they usually allow.

I'll take Diplomacy as an example, once again. The game has very simple rules for battle. You can move units (armies and fleets), support in a battle and convoy armies with fleets. That's pretty much it. In the beginning of the game all the nations are too weak to go to war, so they will need to use diplomacy, and between turns there is a pause of some 20-30 minutes* for the players to discuss (privately if needed, of course). Thus all the gameplay comes in on the deals, plans, promises, truces and especially blackmailing and backstabbing the players do, and there's no rules to limit it. The board and the few rules are designed so that the players will have to do all that to accomplish anything. These very simple rules make for very complex gameplay and a difficult game where the players make the rules and much can happen.

* This is when playing on a real board, of course. Still, with pauses around 20 minutes one game usually takes ~14 hours to finish

[Juni Ori]

Well this would be 2 rounds / week, meaning I would send players empire turn reports twice a week and they would have time to plan their actions in peace, before the deadline. Twice a week has also that advantage it doesn't mix up too badly (or at least shouldn't) with your real life duties. Or if it mixes, I'm the one in deep trouble and causing the delay. Now every player would be on the same line.

Btw, speaking earlier of heirs, their attributes would be influenced by their fathers / mothers, but randomized. But to prevent über-characters emerging, there would be limitation how much his/her attributes would overall increase - or to prevent über-sucky characters emerging. In the beginning players get to do their characters, dividing points quite similarly like in D&D (3rd Ed).

And to list a little what random events would be: modifier to crops, depletion of resource, discovery of new resource, fires, floods, earthquakes, sudden change of attitudes (may even lead to civil disorder), different wandering troublemakers (taken care by militia (cheap), army (expencive) or diplomacy), mercenaries offering services and whole bunch of others.

Speaking of sudden change of attitudes, I decided to plagiate a little games like HoI: there will be x numbers of choises of different society systems, like open / closed society, slavery, taxing, working hours, etc. Change of them will increase dissidency, but population may also want something different than you do and thus increase dissidency. Also (if in any way possible) neighboring territories and their society systems could effect. At least they could start mass moving to better conditions. Or something, that's still quite open and in early stage in my plans.

Come on, more feedback!

Edit (Ari replied too quickly!): you have a point, my friend, but too simple rules don't give tools to the players.

And I have to mention that trade is of course one important factor, as well as technological discoveries...

Edited by Juni Ori, 12 May 2006 - 11:58 AM.

[Aristharus]

If you keep the rules simple and GM it more RPG-like, the simpler rules will mean more gameplay options.. This meaning that the players may try pretty much anything they want (instead of picking something within the rules) and you could decide the outcome if the rules won't do it. The GMing would be very hard, but it would be even harder to do rules that will allow all that in advance.

I play board games pretty much, and I've noticed that many games with lots of complex rules feel very restrained compared to some games with very simple rules. Complex games will have you picking something to do from alternatives, where simpler games will have you inventing something to do. Both can be fun, though, and it's your game, so do it your way.

EDIT: Btw, another good example there is Go, compared with Chess, for example. I trust some of you know the game. In chess there are very complex rules for a game like that, dozens of possibilities each turn, and lots of strategy. In Go, the rules are simple, but there are hundreds of possibilities each turn, and (IMHO) even more strategy. It's very complex, but in a different way. Computers beat world's master chess players, but in Go you don't need a very good player to beat a computer. Chess is to maths what Go is to philosophy. Or something..

This didn't really have anything to do with anything anymore... sorry. I'm just bored again.

Edited by Aristharus, 12 May 2006 - 12:30 PM.

[BeefontheBone]

We could just play Diplomacy, of course - that'd give me a chance to get the board out from under my bed

EDIT: Incidentally, maths is demonstrably beyond the wit of computers - Godel's Second Incompleteness theorem, in essence, states that any sufficiently complex logical system cannot prove its own consistency; combine that with the Turing thesis and it's clear that human mathematicians are necessary. Which is a relief

[Aristharus]

BeefontheBone, on May 12 2006, 03:16 PM, said:

We could just play Diplomacy, of course - that'd give me a chance to get the board out from under my bed

I'd actually like the idea. I've been mostly playing online with complete strangers even though I have the game, as a 7 player group that has some 14 hours to spend on a game is very hard to gather. It would be cool to play with people you know (even a bit) once again.

Don't know if we can gather those 7 players here either, though. And that would kinda be hijacking Juni's thread and the idea to play some strategy game like this here...

EDIT: Or, we both could try to join some other online Dip game, Beef? And anyone else who's interested, of course. Then we'd have the 7 players and a GM, and still know someone of the players a little.

[A. J. Raffles]

BeefontheBone, on May 12 2006, 03:16 PM, said:

We could just play Diplomacy, of course - that'd give me a chance to get the board out from under my bed

Oh, for a moment I didn't see the words 'the board' there and was wondering how you manage to fit a computer under your bed.

[DannyMc252]

I remember I onc eplayed a game EXACTLY like what you're planning. Each player had a planet, but was completely isolated from every other player until they found them. Each player had an excel spreadsheet to deal with every week to work out profit (or loss.. ) and to build new buildings with.

I lost the link sometime, or the host site went down. I think it was the second, infact.

[Aristharus]

BeefontheBone, on May 12 2006, 03:16 PM, said:

EDIT: Incidentally, maths is demonstrably beyond the wit of computers - Godel's Second Incompleteness theorem, in essence, states that any sufficiently complex logical system cannot prove its own consistency; combine that with the Turing thesis and it's clear that human mathematicians are necessary. Which is a relief

I'm still sure computers make better mathematicians than philosophers, as (kind of) was the point..

[taikara]

Sounds like an awesome idea, Juni, I'm impressed. I'm not big on that sort of game, myself, but I wish you well in getting it set up, I bet a lot of people would enjoy it.