I may be up for SMAC PBEM. I usually pretty good about my turns.
Troy
Brian,
I’m really curious as to what you think that market is? 100k units, 500k, a Meg+? Do the super corps think Civ IV sucks up all the demand for turn based strategy? Why hasn’t anybody tried to compete or even set their sights on achieving half of Civ IV’s sales with a smaller team. Surely you don’t always have to swing for the fences with every product?
This is the best forum that has ever existed.
Prior to that game, Denny, there was a very long-running PBEM SMAC game going with several Qt3 regulars. In the end, we discovered that SMAC PBEM has a fairly showstopping bug that makes it difficult or impossible to finish games once people start being eliminated. It took well over a year to make this discovery, though. :P
a couple mod teams have tried:
http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=24
but, yeah, EA owns the rights to Alpha Centauri.
On the subject of awesome early Firaxis games that we need modern renditions of I just want to mention Gettysburg. In my opinion it remains the absolute finest wargames ever. While it may not be worthy for the grognards, I’ve never played a game that captures the ebb and flow of combat in the age of rifles so well. I believe SMG and Myth came out in the same year, making that year one of sheer tactical nirvana. I’ve been SMG on gametap a bit recently and though it’s UI doesn’t stand the test too well the gameplay is still fantastic.
Now, back to our regular unadulterated SMAC lovin’
Them umm… I’m out. :P
Really though, all turn based games need to have a way, be it email or otherwise, to play it multiplayer. ALL OF THEM. There is no reason not to do it. And they all need to have timers and stale turns ala Dominions.
Geek Law?
what’s a stale turn?
ROTFL
Geek Law!
I love the idea of SMAC PBEM games, and on release I got involved with around seven of them. It was a fantastic start, with more role-playing than I’ve ever seen going on and huge enthusiasm.
And every single one of those games ground to a halt shortly into the process. It was a lot of hassle to get the game file out of the email and into the right location and then to mail it out to the next person, plus there was no facility for dealing with someone dropping out of the game and no tracking of where the game currently was…you’d sit around not sure if the game was progressing or not.
This made me pine for a real PBEM engine with a game, that allowed mixing online play and PBEM and provided facilities for replacing a player with AI (even temporarily while they were on vacation), etc. Civ4 has a multiplayer server that does some of this, as I recall, though I haven’t gotten a chance to try it.
In Dominions if you don’t take your turn within the time limit, you just get a stale turn. Nothing happens to you or yours (unless an event or a player does something to you), but you can play your next turn just fine.
It’s a work around for people not taking their turns, but I imagine it requires a server setup like Dominions because something has to push the turns forward.
Ok…so can we live with ‘The Sims 3: return to Alpha Centauri’ ?!(sobs!)
Why have computer games become so f**ked up?
I agree with Brian Reynolds that you’d have to have people with the right knowledge in the design process - too make believe and you’d lose an imprtant part of the charm.
I see… the PitBoss works like this with a turn timer. I’d just never heard the term.
I’ve never played PitBoss… Is it good? (edit: Just looked it up… I’d think I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone is using it here. I’d love to play some Civ4 MP).
As for stale turns. shrugs it’s a good stop gap, but I’d rather be able to set some parameters and have some things done if you know you’re going to have be gone.
Dominions Example: I have to be gone a week and I’ll miss three turns in my game. So I setup my helper AI to not expand (lets say it’s not early game and random expansion might be bad), to build up as much army as they can each turn, to keep my mercs hired with a certain percentage range (i.e. - I only want to spend up to 120% of what they worth, if someone outbids that, I lose them) and to keep researching my current project until it hits level 4, then go to another.
Maybe even to take the projected money over the next three turns and disperse it before hand. Or have setup of troop movement, assuming no attacks, etc.
General rules of engagement would be good too. If attacked, defend A) Vigorously, B) yes, not at the cost of previous plans, C) just turtle.
These are just ideas off the top of my head… :)
Brian,
What’s wrong with making an analogue to the game? Nobody seems to be confused with the idea that Supreme Commander is the next game for the Total Annihilation series, even though it isn’t the same IP. If you called the game something else and altered enough of the original game such that it doesn’t fit into the original IP any longer (ie Galatic Civilizations is a similar game to MOO but clearly isn’t the same game) and perhaps advances the gameplay up to and past what modern strategy games offer (such as Civ 4), then I don’t think many people would mind. By the same token, we might not mind having one game from Brian Reynolds and one from Sid Meiers and company. “Civilization 4: The Final Frontier” expansion vs Big Huge’s “Galactic Colonization” (or whatever you feel sounds cool).
– Kunikos
p.s. I still think Sid Meier’s Aliens! sounds like a cool title for a game. ;)
Seconded!
Hey, this time around lets give Brian the box cover credit, ok?
I don’t see any major problems with the concept (besides the tedious and unimportant one of securing funding) since Alpha Centauri’s story really is so self contained, though following up on the awesome story is setting a high bar. It’s some of the best sci fi I’ve ever read, well on par with most novels out there.
if you are interested in the PitBoss (which basically is our stab at “moderated” PBEM), you should check out this site:
http://www.civstats.com/allgames.php
A guy put together a little utility to help people track their active PitBoss games from the Web. It’s pretty cool…
In other words, it’s like learning to play Civilization I for the first time? Come on, like you knew pottery gives you granarys and helps with growth and food beforehand.
Hands down. The writing was unbelievably good, considering it was a bunch of disconnected little bits scattered around a turn-based game, of all things.
Hey, thanks. But I think you may have put your finger on another good reason I for one haven’t gone back to that kind of topic – I certainly “gave it my all” when creating that setting, and so far I haven’t really felt the creative need to return to something similar. Or you could say AC cleaned me pretty well out of “pithy pearls of subversive wisdom”, at least for the nonce. :-)
On an entirely tangential note, because I’m a sci-fi fanboy too, I keep wondering if Battlestar Galactica will run out of good material soon. Though I’m starting to worry they already did this season.
Brian