New Epic Ideas?

[Kodi]

As for me, and I think for others as well, there are some epics that look promising to some people and not so promising to other, and I think it would be great to have an epic twice a month (like GOTM) or even once a month, and since no one has previously created a thread for suggesting ideas, I thought it would be interesting to set one up .

As for ideas, one of mine would simply be ideas from past epics, for there are quite a few of us who have only joined the RBCiv community recently. It would be nice to have a chance to play variations of past variations.

Another idea would be a potluck game, but I realize that takes A LOT of work.

Feel free to contibute ideas, comments, questions and concerns .

~Kodi

[Dunedine]

I actualy have played 2 of the old Epics myself. I went back in time to Epic12: The Gauntlent, and Epic ?: Soyuz and played them out. Variations on old variations? Why not just come up with new variations. Chances are in order to make these new epics "fresh" enough you will have to change it so much that it resembles a completly new epic. I really hope I'm making sense hear. But anyways I only recently joined and I think this is an interesting idea!

[Sirian]

The problem for the Epics right now is not lack of scenario ideas, but low participation. When we are only having half a dozen folks playing, does it make sense to divide them even further by running two games at a time?

The folks still hot for Civ3 are neck deep in SGs and preferring to play four and five SGs at a time rather than an Epic. Then the SG players are in feast mode and too busy (ironically) to play a tourney game. Plus many prefer not to go to the lengths necessary to set up their own webspace. CFC does it for them, for SG play.

Since the SG crowd has embraced variantism wholeheartedly, and they no longer need Charis and I to come up with ideas, they've got their own momentum. Meanwhile, those who prefer to play Epics or who try to do both have outgrown Civ3, for the most part. Plus there are many old timer RBCiv folks who are dissatisfied in one way or another with the Conquests game balance. That may be the stealth problem. Armies now overpowered, AI more fickle than ever with its targetting, more easily manipulated, and the lack of early AI contacts with one another on water maps lets players play broker/middleman to an extent that softens up the challenge.

All told, there are a bunch of factors contributing to Epics slowing down, and lack of scenario concepts to try isn't one of them.

Since the SG scene is busier than ever, those in need of more Civ3 fodder than we're dishing out here can sign on to a few SGs and get their fix. Thus it seems unwise to accelerate the Epics beyond the level of demand currently available.

Does this make sense?


- Sirian

[Sullla]

Just to piggyback on what Sirian has already said here, I'd fully agree that participation for the Epics has tapered off in large part due to Civ3 burnout. It's not that there aren't interesting ideas for games being floated (and run), it's that I played Civ3 almost exclusively from January 2002 to roughly October 2003. I participated in most of the early Epics, and I was playing solo and succession games even before Sirian created the Epics. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm personally waiting for the release of Civ4 sometime around the end of this year before jumping back into turn-based strategy games.

One of the things that always interested me about both variant-based succession games and the Epics was the discovery aspect; that is, playing Civ3 in a very unorthodox way in order to learn more about the game itself. I think by this point in time, Civ3 is pretty well-covered ground, and it's unlikely that anything too dramatic remains to be discovered. Games tend to be less interesting to play when the strategies have become so well-known as to become formulaic.

I won't go into the balance problems with Conquests here, but I was very dissatisfied with the final version of the expansion. Things that BreakAway guaranteed would be fixed in patches were never addressed. My discussion of that is on my website for the curious. (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla...stsed.html)

I certainly see the problem for those who are still very much caught up in the "one more turn" addiction of Civ3; hey, it's a great game! But again, I'd echo Sirian in saying that more frequent Epics probably would not be a good idea.