I have had this idea bouncing around in my head for more than a year now. On a whim, I decided to post the gist of it here. What follows is a vague smattering of what it would be like. Please join in with your ideas. Imagine a game where all the players begin as a separate entity, a small colony, faction, or whatever. A random map is generated for each campaign. The game would be slow paced, perhaps website based, maybe email based, or perhaps it would have its own application window. A number of options exist for each player, but the primary tool available to each player is persuasion. Not some die roll type of persuasion ability, but honest to goodness ''get on a pulpit'' and be convincing type of persuasion. Initially, players will have to forge alliances to be stronger against their neighbors. In such an alliance, one player will likely have to yield to another based on what each has to offer. As players join up, the small territories actually become states, provinces, or whatever (it''s up to the players to decide the nature of their newly forming nation) and each player essentially assumes a governmental role in the growing nation. Through some type of game mechanic, (and based on the governmental structure of the nation) decisions are moderated. Private and public communication between players is available. This is to facilitate rebellions, coups, internal designs, etc. Propoganda, media, and campaigning are also encouraged. Diplomatic ties between nations must be forged, and this will rely on the nation''s existing power, and persuasive abilities of the players behind the nation. I would imagine some type of ''win'' is determined when a certain ''power'' function is significantly greater than the next most powerful nation. The ''power'' function would likely be defined by the nation''s wealth and land area.

I once had an idea pretty much exactly the same... but I couldn''t do anything to create it. I did put something like it trhough email and instant messages... and it failed. Make sure you have a graphical application to make the users feel good about playing it...

If I have any more advice I will post it

Good Luck.

Perhaps looking at some of the table top games where trade is important would be useful.

Typically the game would have a handful of commodities, each having a different value. Acquiring multiple units of the same commodity provides a hefty bonus, so there is incentive to trade for units of lower intrinsic value if they make a larger set.

Usually used for economic simulation, you''d probably need something else for other areas of interaction.

I''ve played with ideas around such a concept for a long time (a while ago it was my $1M "idea" - every newbie has one - right now I''m more interested in much smaller games). What I tried to do was to create a Risk like game with the political system of the Dune books. A game where power is to a greater extent a matter of relations than of brute arsenal. Another great source of inspiration was the "VGA Planets" game - the most diplomacy intensive game I''ve played.


I think the game mechanics are paramount to making the players relate rather than just kill each other like they do in most games today.

1) Limited brute force: In most RTS''s (and RPGs) there comes a time when a player is easily 1000 times stronger than another player. Obviously, communication between such two players isn''t really useful, and the big player just kills the small player (this is also why MMORPGs just can''t get rid of that stupid PK protection). This happens because the growth of each players empire / character in such games is exponential. I propose a system where the growth is logarithmic (logarithmic economic growth depending on time, logarithmic territorial expansion depending on time, log growth in firepower depending on the resources invested, etc.). This would make sure that the combined powers of two players are always larger than the power of one player in control of the resources of them both, even though by stealing from his neighbor the first player would get stronger.

This would also make sure that no player would become more powerful than all the others, ever. Just like the Emperor in Dune was vastly outnumbered by the combined forces of the Lansraad, although his Sardaukar could level each of the Great Houses.

2) Blurry information: It is extremely important that every information the game provides is not 100% reliable. Also that hiding information is pretty easy. All spies can become double spies and send back reports made up by other players. This way every information has to be checked and double checked. Relations between players would be crucial here. Having someone you can trust - a most important asset. Having someone that trusts you (especially in a position of power)- 1000 opportunities of treason.

4) Costly war: In many games going to war is an economic necessity: the troops cost a lot - sending them to war both limits the costs and wins some territory. I propose a system where peace is far more profitable than war - the obvious reality. In peacetime, the soldiers can stay at their homes and do their jobs (strengthening the economy) - if they practice their military skills only on Sundays, the costs are limited sevenfold. Going to war would require a lot of preparations - buying supplies, weapons, training the troops into shape, etc. I''d also want a system where going from peace status to war status requires a very high one - time cost. This would make agreements where one player handles the defense and other players the economy a necessity - more player-to-player relations.

Like in Dune the House of Harkonnen had to gather their profits on Arrakis for 60 years to pay for the logistics involved in the treacherous battle against House Atreides.

5) Different players skills - another reason why a player would not be killed by another just because the second one can. And another reason for negotiating.

In the Dune world there were specialized entities: the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, Ix, mentat schools. All of these would provide rather unique services. Destroying them would mean a major blow to the power of everyone around. Conflicts with such players must be resolved with other weapons - more diplomacy.

6) A legal system: I''m balancing on this one between a hard-coded legal system and leaving this to the players. In the first case AI players may have a chance. In the second case the game would only provide a way to sign documents - such documents would become game objects, and could be used as evidence. The second system is better I believe, even though the game would be limited to MMO. Custom laws, and contracts could appear between players.

Examples:
Some players can decide that there would be no armed conflict between each of them unless all the others agree - Cosa Nostra like rules - you cannot whack a boss unless the Committee approves.

Others can accept a law that says that if someone attacks a player he was allied to than every player drop all conflicts and focus on destroying his treacherous self.

quote: Original post by Drizzt DoUrden
Make sure you have a graphical application to make the users feel good about playing it...

You''re probably correct here. Although I think a webpage version would suffice as a prototype.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Typically the game would have a handful of commodities, each having a different value. Acquiring multiple units of the same commodity provides a hefty bonus, so there is incentive to trade for units of lower intrinsic value if they make a larger set.

Yes, I agree that some type of economic simulation based around exchange rates and trading of natural resources should be an element.

quote: Original post by Diodor
2) Blurry information: It is extremely important that every information the game provides is not 100% reliable. Also that hiding information is pretty easy. All spies can become double spies and send back reports made up by other players. This way every information has to be checked and double checked. Relations between players would be crucial here. Having someone you can trust - a most important asset. Having someone that trusts you (especially in a position of power)- 1000 opportunities of treason.

This very much captures the spirit of what I have been envisioning. I see the game revolving around the relations between the players. There would be constant political jockeying, power struggles, second-in-commands, falsification of information, slander, players acting as double agents, selling of valuable information, propoganda, public information and disinformation, etc.

I have been trying to come to terms with how there could be public information and private information passed between the players while preserving the possibility of other players intercepting or eavesdropping on this information. What I absolutely would like to prevent is two players swapping email addresses and then sharing information completely safe from all the other players. So, there would have to be some way of preventing players of giving another player his email address. At first, this may seem impossible. But there might be a way by providing a limited set of communication bewteen players that would prevent this.

quote: Original post by Diodor
This would make agreements where one player handles the defense and other players the economy a necessity - more player-to-player relations.

Again, this captures the spirit of what I would like to see. The players actully build and form their own power hierarchy amongst themselves. This could have some fascinating side effects. One player might be elected to be the head of intelligence. This player, while not the head of state, has a great deal of power. He is essentially the owner of the state''s intelligence, and might choose to share or not share certain intelligence with the other members of his government to enhance his power. This is very much like what goes on in the CIA and FBI. J. Edgar Hoover, former head of teh FBI, was notorious for doing this.

quote: Original post by Diodor
6) A legal system: I''m balancing on this one between a hard-coded legal system and leaving this to the players. In the first case AI players may have a chance. In the second case the game would only provide a way to sign documents - such documents would become game objects, and could be used as evidence. The second system is better I believe, even though the game would be limited to MMO. Custom laws, and contracts could appear between players.

I would strongly like to see the players able to set up their own legal system. Your idea about document signing sounds interesting. Can you elaborate on it?

quote: Original post by Diodor
Examples:
Some players can decide that there would be no armed conflict between each of them unless all the others agree - Cosa Nostra like rules - you cannot whack a boss unless the Committee approves.

Others can accept a law that says that if someone attacks a player he was allied to than every player drop all conflicts and focus on destroying his treacherous self.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I have been thinking about.

I think it''s a greate ide!

This is what all these Warcraft, Age of Empires, Red Alert and all other clones miss.... They are only: collect, build, destroy over and over again in a repeatative patern... Quite boring i must say!
They have missed a whole level in these games by not using diplomacy and such. Since these games start to remove single unit management and gear towards a higher level of management control in battle, i think it would be possible to introduce a lot of politics in these types of games.

Maybe politics won''t work at all in these types of games, but i sure would like to try a few...

Maybe this wasn''t exsactly what you were talking about, then concider this as a parenthes in the context...

I hear that Civ 3 will be greate...

//Peter

This thread reminds me very much about feudalism in the Middle Ages. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Feudalism: a social system of rights and duties based on land tenure and personal relationships in which land (and to a much lesser degree other sources of income) is held in fief by vassals from lords to whom they owe specific services and with whom they are bound by personal loyalty.

The last few words are the most important; persons in a feudal society aren''t loyal to an abstract "state", but to other persons, and loyalty depends on rewards, favors, protection etc. As a ruler has to get involved personally in everything, two lords with one fief each were more powerful together than one lord holding both fiefs. As another poster noted, in a society like this power does not increase exponentially with land area.

In making my own feudal-era strategy game, I try to simulate this. All important actions, like raising armies, building castles, collecting taxes etc have to be performed personally by the lord or a vassal of his. This means that if your land becomes too big, there will always be some corner of it you don''t have time to extract taxes from. If you''re attacked, it will take a long time to personally travel across the country, raise an army and command it. And if you do, other business will be left unattended.

This means it''s more efficient to make other players your vassals than to conquer them. A vassal will maintain and defend his own fief and he will pay some taxes to you. In return he expects you to help him if his enemies are too powerful for him to handle himself.

This is hopefully fairly easy for a player to understand, as what you can do depends on the very concrete "Lord" playing piece on the map. When you''ve used up that piece''s actions for the current turn, you can''t do anything more. There is no hidden information.

Right now I''m tinkering with the victory conditions. It only seems logical that several players can win. Maybe there will be a sliding scale. Everyone who survives the game get points according to the number of land areas directly or indirectly under their control.

Maybe someone else has more ideas on how to win such a game?


... we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...
Winston Churchill, June 4 1940

_martin_, I like the feudal systems and may have some ideas on victory conditions.

A person who holds a specific number of fiefdoms and is in alliance with the overwhelming majority of others - whose security is no longer dependent on the minute swings of power - could be declared winner. Alternatively, a person who remains in (net) power for a "lifetime" (say, 50 game years) is declared winner (hey, life expectancy was shorter then). This gives the main game a defined duration and objective.

Another thing to include is specific scenarios where the winner is the first to attain an objective which may be fiscal or diplomatic (say, to convince a foreign entity to enter alliance with the countries leige rather than invade, which of course requires first lobbying the leige/monarch for selection). And allow for new, innovative and intriguing scenarios to be purchased/downloaded.