An apparent gap to fill (interest check on a balance mechanic-driven Civ RP)

Every time I check back here (which happens very rarely) the Civilization RP section of the forum is empty. Is it just something that doesn't interest people, or has the right one just not come along? As a semi-casual, slow-paced type of RP with flashes of action I really think it's a niche that deserves to be filled.

If someone were willing to co-moderate (possibly take over) one with me I think a lot of the problems with Civ RPs could be fixed with some simple dice mechanics. Randomization and cycles of fortune and misfortune could add a lot to what some probably consider a tiresome and overdone game type. Does that sound like the kind of thing anyone would want to play? The nature and scope of the mechanics would be, of course, up for discussion and subject to change throughout play.

Any interest?

I'm interested. It's nice to see you again, by the way.

Anyhow, I tried Precipice of War once and I couldn't do it. It may have been because I jumped in the middle of it and not entirely understand what was going on. We should probably start off at an earlier, more tribal stage if that makes sense.

A tribal start is always fun. Possibly have everyone start as a wandering nomadic population. It all depends, though, on what exactly we're supposed to be playing as. It changes a lot whether you're supposed to be playing as a nation or as a race. A lot of games will blur the two together, which generally results in a mess.

We can probably find a way to organize it together neatly. We can start as either two different races, and governing a state or government by our own. At first the countries and states could bond together with their respective racial heritage and start some war, and when we see who comes out on top, it can be traditional country versus country.

Of course we'd need a proper time frame.

Time frame and pace are crucial, and always difficult to pin down. It's another thing some sort of central mechanic would help with. Related to that is the fact that some people, by virtue of posting more frequently, tend to be in sped up time, unbalancing the game.

I'm gonna leave this thread here to see if there's wider interest before working too much on anything specific, but it's good to think about what problems we'd need to solve. The main ones I can think of are fair battle resolution, keeping everyone's timescale in line, and making sure no one player can be all-mighty for too long.

>> dice rolls in a Civ RP

Nope. Nope nope nope.

That would be so... completely terrible. The only thing worth randomizing would be resource spread- everything else significant should be the result of interaction, and combat should be decided by cleverness and tactics, not random luck.(If I trap you in a pinser against a wall, and start with a volley of arrows, you shouldn't have a 10% chance of beating me, because the only way that would happen is if my entire army suddenly suffers from "nameless bad guy" syndrome.

Leaving everything up to interaction, while best for maximizing Roleplay, in practice can tend to just be shitty. Say you've executed your pincer-volley maneuver flawlessly (congratulations) and the other player decides that they can still out-tactic you. They do some clever-sounding maneuver that in reality wouldn't work, and now you're the one pinned. What do you say? "My tactics were better than yours, concede" won't work. You can appeal to a mod, but then you have to stick with their decision, and mods can be biased. You can work it out with the other player, but why leave open such a gaping potential for argument? Bickering made up a lot of the Civ RPs back on the Sporum, even those with reasonable and intelligent players, because what tactics work where and against what is entirely subjective.

Much better that combat should be rolled out before hand, or perhaps, in multiple stages. Prevents conflict. It's also important to note that there are lots of ways bad luck can strike an army, and lots of historical examples of armies being beat against the odds. Besides, the only reason to dismiss the randomness is if we have players who take issue with Roleplaying the loser, and honestly, those are players who are not needed in the first place. If people can't hand fate turning against them when they expected to win, then there's a good chance that they wouldn't have been fun to play with even without the randomness.

Randomization serves other purposes than solving the question of combat, though. It can be worked into the whole game. The core would still be roleplay; you would still determine the fate of your people. It's just that if people are given free reign to plot their direction, it's almost always going to be straight up. Randomization adds unpredictability, unexpected difficulties that players have to react to, keeping them on their toes and more fairly representing the path of a nation: one of ups and downs.

The only way to make this a good Civ RP is to make sure that people can build great and powerful empires, and make sure that those empires can fall just as easily as they arose. Cycles of victory and failure, just like with real nations.

I do agree though that whatever is set in place, it would have to be very, very simple, and not damage the roleplay. As far as possible it should be based around creating a narrative, and should be as far as possible from seeming arbitrary.

I was involved in several Civ RPs on the Sporum(the Roleplay series, specifically) and that issue never came up. Not once. So long as you have rules that say "no insta-success" in combat, it should be fine. (okay, there was one time, but the guy in question was being incredibly stupid, saying that his people responded to a larger and superior force by throwing rocks, so he should win, and that was the third last post he made, so...)

And that's exactly why you need good mods. Saying "Mods can be biased" is like saying "sometimes I write badly" it means you made a mistake, and now you're trying to excuse it.

And no, nations don't rise OR fall easily. That's... stupid. The only time a nation falls is when a superior nation rises. The only exception I know of is Rome, and they fell to disease(there's a good spot for randomization- disease. Plagues and pandemics would be a great way to implement a degree of randomization)

And, again. I have an issue with this, but not because it might force me to roleplay the loser. It's because this would make it possible for my two hundred men with swords to beat your five hundred with muskets. There's a reason they removed most of the randomization from the Civilization series of games, and that's basically it right there.

It's called modifiers. Unlike in Civ, for instance, fights have been lost to the technologically inferior. So because X is more capable than Y, Y should not immediately win. And as he was saying, random hands of fate in combat. The wind blows against your sails, slowing your ships, a sudden downpour causes the ground to become muddy, making your musket men's ascent up the hill that much harder, as arrows rain down on them. It happens.

I for one am up for this. A general failing point of mine is eventual disinterest in a Civ rp, where others have advanced so much faster than me, and beyond me. And I'm always a fan of taking success from the player's hands. My tendency to underplay my capabilities and normally means I am a designated loser. Letting the dice decide is nice, in my opinion.

Only if it's random events. You can't decide the whole thing on random chance. Go play Civ three, garrison a tank in your capital, then have a single barbarian come in and burn down the city, and you'll see why this is annoying.

And, again, combat isn't as big an aspect of these things as you guys seem to think. Noone wants to face extinction, so unless someone is the "war-monger" then everyone ends up getting along more or less peacefully.(usually two or three factions form with tense relations, but...)

And Ji, you're right, that sort of thing can happen. But not with good tactics. For example, a hill with archers at the top? I would avoid it, or(since you just said I have muskets) pummel it with long range artillery fire(cannons), while waiting for favorable conditions for a cavalry charge. Sun Tzu teaches that there are only a handful of types of terrain, based on their traits in regard to combat(a point of weakness, a point of strength, a point of no advantage, a key point that you must take to control a region, etc) and when your enemy is in a position of strength, you bypass them, or hit them with overwhelming force. Clever Tactics can overcome any disadvantage, and that is what, more often than not, causes an upset. Not random luck.

Do you mean the successors to the one called 'Civilization RP'?

If 'The only time a nation fell was when a superior nation rises' then we would be left with history looking like a tournament bracket. Nations fall and rise for all kinds of reasons. Rome fell for a very large array of factors. The one overriding cause is something historians debate, with plague being one some suggest. But there are other examples of empires which suffered collapse due to non-military internal factors. The USSR, for example. Or Britain. Or for an older example, the Frankish empire was broken up in succession. Civil War is also one of the main killers. In addition, to say that all empires fall because a more powerful force destroys them might be looking at it the wrong way round; in the Western Roman Empire's case, internal factors lead to a situation where they were unusually vulnerable to destruction.

The problem is, when left to their own devices, people can roleplay negatively even if they don't mean to. People play to win, even if their concept of 'winning' is just to complete the story they have planned in their head. Even good writers can fall for it. Unpredictability is key to keep people guessing and train everyone to understand their own fallibility.

Plus, some randomness is fun. Yes it's annoying if I lose my musketmen, but that wouldn't be likely; the odds would be against it. But without the slim chance of victory, there's no possibility for things like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwanathis to happen.

Maybe you're right though. I can see how the arbitrary nature of a dice roll might be discouraging. A much lighter system that leaves more power to the writer would be ideal. Perhaps something like FATE, where you expend points to achieve extraordinary successes. I don't know. I do know however that this RP should have some sort of mechanic that makes fortune less predictable as well as something to line up the timescale for each player. Resources don't need to be counted, not, for all I care, do soldiers or civilian populations. Those end up being difficult to keep track of and inconsistent. Just some broad rules that add a framework around which the story can be written.

Edit: Sorry for the double, figured that as this is a response to something later than the last it'd just be confusing to lump them together.

[quote=Ji]It's called modifiers. Unlike in Civ, for instance, fights have been lost to the technologically inferior. So because X is more capable than Y, Y should not immediately win. And as he was saying, random hands of fate in combat. The wind blows against your sails, slowing your ships, a sudden downpour causes the ground to become muddy, making your musket men's ascent up the hill that much harder, as arrows rain down on them. It happens. [/quote]

Very much this. And it's not only once battle is joined that fate suddenly takes an interest. In the leadup to that battle, supply lines could have been cut by weather, trashing morale. Your opponent could have been rallied by a fortuitous omen. These, and what Ji mentioned, all have historical precedent, by the way.

It's also important to remember that, for the sake of Roleplay, commanding officers and individual troops are not all entirely competent. Maybe your tactics are perfect, but a miscommunication can cause you to lose none the less. It just takes one weak link, and suddenly, you have this:

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd.

In some cases (not all, of course) perfect, spotless tactics are bad roleplay, and can even verge on metagame.

You are right that combat isn't a lot of it, though.

Yeah, I didn't want to bring up the intricacies of trying to get orders out. I've seen ttrpgs try to simplify it, and it's still a horrible mess.

I was only discussing war because I assumed that was where we had an issue.

Also, always nice to have you back Doctor.

Let's not forget that two hundred men with swords has a massive advantage over five hundred men with muskets if the battle is taken place in a forest or jungle. But let's not forget that not everything in a civilization roleplay is warfare. There are also political battles, self-growth and trade. You're also fighting personal battles such as disease, economics, and natural disaster. In a completely personalized roleplay with no dice, people usually don't take these factors into consideration, and I think dice would be a wonderful way of keeping everything realistic to an extent. Like the Doctor said, it would keep our players on their toes. That being said, he has my full-fledged support.

Ji wrote:

Yeah, I didn't want to bring up the intricacies of trying to get orders out. I've seen ttrpgs try to simplify it, and it's still a horrible mess.

I was only discussing war because I assumed that was where we had an issue.

Also, always nice to have you back Doctor.

Thank you.

The point being to leave as much up to the player as possible, the way I had envisioned a dice scheme working (specific to combat) is that the die would be rolled beforehand, and going into a battle each person would know if they were to lose or win (and possibly, how much they were to lose or win). They could then Roleplay out the battle as they wished, letting their own downfall be due to something of their choosing (tactical blunder, weather, strength of the opponent, etc). It could also have been in phases, so that the whole outcome of the battle wasn't known from the start. I'm kind of drifting away from that now though; as cursiveWrit said, combat isn't actually all that important, and sometimes it is very much a forgone conclusion. The chance aspect could be implemented in a much more simple, coverall way, without requiring tedious dice rolls for each single battle, and still leaving open the option for amazing unexpected victories. There still does need to be a chance aspect, however.

I think that the most simple possible solution is going to be the best. That said, I have some ideas that may or may not be simple in practice.

Whalerus?



OMG it's a dopple ganger...

That is all.

TheWhalerus wrote:

If 'The only time a nation fell was when a superior nation rises' then we would be left with history looking like a tournament bracket. Nations fall and rise for all kinds of reasons. Rome fell for a very large array of factors. The one overriding cause is something historians debate, with plague being one some suggest. But there are other examples of empires which suffered collapse due to non-military internal factors. The USSR, for example. Or Britain. Or for an older example, the Frankish empire was broken up in succession. Civil War is also one of the main killers. In addition, to say that all empires fall because a more powerful force destroys them might be looking at it the wrong way round; in the Western Roman Empire's case, internal factors lead to a situation where they were unusually vulnerable to destruction.

The USSR was NEVER a powerful empire, atleast by my definition. It was falling apart basically from year one, and even if it hadn't been, it's fall was atleast partially precipitated by it's citizens looking at the US after the "iron curtain" was dropped, and going "they look a lot happier than we are." Cultural/ happiness victory, anyone?

Britain didn't "fall", Britain was eclipsed by other, more powerful nations. Note how they still have relevance on the world stage(one of the... six? major nuclear powers through the cold war) and have one of the most extensive and powerful networks of allies in the world. Unfortunately China, the USSR and the US eclipsed Britain, and they're still chugging away, trying to regain their prior relevance.

The Frankish Empire wasn't powerful after it was split, and frankly(heh) wouldn't have been powerful EVER if not for freak chance, due to the "split inheritance" ideal. There's a reason most powerful nations gave the full inheritance to the eldest- it reduces the chance of the whole lot being taken by an enemy. Again, I said the fall of an empire, not the decline. Most empires do start to peter off before they get crushed, but the Frankish Empire split into three smaller empires, all of which were then consumed by larger, more powerful empires. I think that qualifies.

As I said, Rome is an outlier. They have a complicated history, and were incredibly powerful. Far to powerful for one nation to defeat them, so they needed a complicated situation to defeat them. Hell, the west got sacked by barbarians. That's just... wrong.

Note that single-ruler empires don't count for this rule. I don't want to hear about how the Khans or Greece lost their massive empire overnight because Alexander and Ghengis died, because those empires ONLY existed on the force of will and intelligence of their leader.

Have some more examples- Phyrus, fell to the Roman Empire, Aztecs, fell to the Spanish Empire, Iroquois, fell to the Americans(though technically I'm not sure if this counts or not- my memory on this one is unclear as to whether this was the sole work of Hiawatha or not), The Ottoman Empire, fell to the Russians and ... I can't seem to recall the other force. Germans? Italians? :/

Quote :

The USSR was NEVER a powerful empire...

... Britain didn't "fall", Britain was eclipsed by other, more powerful nations. China, the USSR and the US eclipsed Britain...

Just thought that was interesting.

First, I should clarify, my definition of 'empire' is a bit broad. I would consider the United States an empire because of the influence they exert over other nations. That might be the cause of our misunderstanding considering the USSR. That said, I'll still say my bit concerning it.

The USSR was the second most powerful empire on Earth along with the United States for most of the last century. This was after they defeated the greatest military force on Earth (albeit with help), the Third German Empire. These two empires (the USSR and the US) then battled for influence over the whole planet, and each posed a viable existential threat to the other. I figure they both deserve to be called powerful. But that's besides the point. Whether it was powerful or not, it was a nation that collapsed. You agree that their collapse wasn't caused my military annihilation, even if it was due to American action (which I personally do not think it was, but that's open for debate).

Britain purposefully dismantled it's own Empire. You are right that it wasn't a 'fall' as such. But they did lose a hell of a lot of land, rapidly, and not because of war. From a quarter of the worlds landmass and population to where they are now is what I would classify as the loss of an Empire, despite the fact that it didn't result in the destruction of the state (which the collapse of an Empire doesn't always do, anyway).

Are we thinking about the same Frankish Empire? The easternmost sliver of the Frankish Empire became the dominant force in Europe through the middle ages (with the possible exception of the remaining Roman Empire). It spent a lot of that time fighting the western sliver, which was the other powerful European force at the time. Are you really calling France and Germany small and weak? Because they.... aren't. Like, really, they became super powerful. The united Frankish Empire was quite something, and it split up because of succession. Not war. And again, what does it matter how powerful it was? It was an empire, and it fell apart, without being destroyed by another empire.

The Mongol Empire started by Genghis Khan kept going for a couple of generations after his death, continuing to be the most militarily powerful nation on the planet. It fell apart due to internal power struggles. It didn't die with the great Khan, in fact, after his death it continued to expand massively, reaching it's height (although it was already breaking up) with Kublai Khan's conquest of all of China. I'll give you Alexander though, he was the glue that kept his Empire together. But he wasn't Greek, he was Macedonian, and it was the Macedonian Empire.

As for your examples, I don't know what you're trying to prove with them. I'm not arguing that nations don't fall to other nations in war. I'm arguing that they do fall to things other than that, which you said never happened. When it did. Frequently. A lot of the time they are destroyed by internal power struggle (Han China, Arabian Empire). Sometimes they split by succession (Luba Empire, Iberian Union). Sometimes they just fall apart (Portugal, Mali). It's instantaneous for some, and a long, slow process for others. War almost always plays a part, it's true, but there are other reasons. And when it is war, there are generally other conditions that lead up to that defeat.

-

EDIT: Look, I don't want to antagonize, and I realize that some of my phrasing above was kinda antagonistic. I can see this sliding into an argument which could derail this thread and make it impossible to get this RP off the ground. We've started to argue over unrelated facts, some of which are subjective or up for debate. If you think anything I've said above isn't true or I've misrepresented anything, PM me and we can discuss it. As for in this thread, just restate your original point, as it relates to the betterment of this RP, and we'll try and work towards a solution. I won't edit my post, but know that rereading it I can tell it's not a good way to go about discussing how to make the best RP.

Also, as to something you mentioned earlier, do you mean you were in the 'Civilization RP' series? Which installment(s)?

All of them but the first. Starting in 2(where I was shit), through to the last successful one, four(in which I had control of a vast network of underground tunnels, and was capable of moving vast armies from place to place without anyone having a method of detecting them(except one guy who for some reason had a crashed spaceship and apparently he started mapping my tunnels, but we killed him because he was a shithead, so...) and through all the dying farts of the series. Ah, Krishona, how I miss that race. They were fucking awesome. Mass Mind, anyone?

but anyways, I honestly believe the best thing to do here is to only leave details up to chance, and then only when it's reasonable.(if I lay siege to a castle, I don't expect that when I say I wait for bright sunny weather to attack it suddenly starts raining. I specified I didn't act until it wasn't, why is it raining now?) and have mods enforce the rules of good RPing. Sorry if I sound like a broken record here, but random chance will only result in lower quality RPing. After all, part of what makes RPing so much fun is the chance for improvisation, that's out the window if you know from the start you lose. But it gets a significant boost if we have to deal with an earthquake during combat, or a fleet of ships gets hit by a sudden storm at sea, etc. etc. etc.

I was the original poster of the second thread. Good times. But as the Aldibeteuse I had some friction with Mihndar that we really could have avoided by just discussing things more reasonably. It wasn't like either of us were bad RPers, we would just both make elaborate plans, and nobody likes to see a plan ruined because another RPer had different things in mind.

To be honest it's not really about battles. What I would want out of a chance mechanic would be something more broad, something to give the RP changeability that isn't forcing a plot on players. Maybe rather than having it be specific to each player, it could be a general mechanic that applied to each player equally. I dunno.

hmmm. A world grid with a random encounter weather and other effect grid, with in-IC dice rolling selecting the event and the location.(that's something we can do here.)

I gues that's why I never bumped into you? There's a bunch of people here who have done Civ RPs before we can draw in for it. Any ideas for rules? Later on we made psionics illegal, because there were just way too many(exceptions were made for good ideas from proven RPers).

Could potentially be interested.

I would say we don't allow everyone to make their own race. In fact, I figure it'd be better off if everyone had to be human, or possibly able to pick from a very small selection of races, each so similar that they don't offer a very marked advantage in any way. Maybe do something cool with the world and work the races into that. If people really needed to, though, making their own race could be worked in.

Whatever mechanic is used it has to be super easy to work with, so it doesn't become a chore. More important for me, though, is there also has to be a way to make time consistent. I feel that's the most important thing to think about.

So far as races... Some variation, even if only in appearance, is better than none if you ask me. At least, assuming we don't plan to kill off and bring back players over and over again. Similiar or the same species are likely to integrate and split and reintegrate endlessly, making it more difficult. Several different species with minor differences in capabilities, however, will keep themselves seperated through alien-ness alone.

Think of it as if a number of homo- species had survived and gained sentience, each just different enough to matter, instead of only homo sapiens.

I'm all for differences in appearance and behavior, it's differences in abilities that I would have the largest problem with. What I could do is adapt something I've already done, which might have a good dynamic; it involves three races (one very human-like), with the major differences being how they look and the fact that one is nocturnal and one diurnal, with the human-like race being capable of adapting to either. We could then allow some further level of customization for each player's ethic group within those races. Would that sound acceptable?

Integration could be complicated, but it also allows for some interesting situations.