Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

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Aegis J Hyena
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Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Sat Oct 25, 2014 5:21 pm

Alright folks, I can't just hide in this room all the time and not contribute something, so it's time to leap right back in with another Civilization. The last one had too much too fast, overburden alongside a storyline that ended up not fun for me to write. We can say I really tried too hard on that one.

This one will also be my last, as I've been doing them for a few years now and the novelty (and desire) has kind of worn off. However, this one I want to try some new things with, and who knows, maybe I'll even FINISH the damn thing this time.

1) We're getting rid of Aspects, period. Those numbers never really could explain what you guys were capable of and more often than not just got in the way.
2) When rolling actions, I'm just going to make a percentile roll and the number rolled is the "percentage of success" you get. If doing something like researching or gathering food or whatnot, I'll keep rolling every month and adding modifiers based on the complexity of things and the circumstances, etc. until you reach 100% or some other target number. This makes things nice and easy rather than adding HOW many different modifiers?! A natural 5- or 95+ or below will still blow or critical the roll.
3) Standard Actions and Finest Hours are the same as they've always been. 3 SA and 1 FH to start with, but only once the race makes it to sentient/sapient life! I'll worry about occupations / skills / hobbies and such later, when we're further in the game.

We're going to try something new this game. Inspired by Spore and various other evolution games, we're going to go through "Seven Layers of Creation" to give rise to some kind of race. The Layers are Conception (Bacterial, deep sea environment, getting further towards the surface as time passes), Advancement (shallow water/tide pool), Emergence (Stepping on land for the first time, lasting 1 year), Dominance (Advancing to the top of the food chain, 2 years), Apex (top of the food chain, actions here make or break sentience, 2 years), Sapience (Prehistory and the discovery of magic, lasting 5 years), and finally Medieval (lasting 15 years) because I don't like further time periods.

In the Conception Stage, each voter can say one sentence about what the "bacterium" looks like, or any special defenses/attacks it might have or evolve. They may also add a "deviant mutation" that 10% of the bacterium will have, and I will decide if it's one to be kept or not (assuming I can think of a way it can advance the species). One person might say "the bacterium is a deep blue in color, with two feelers" and another one might say "It has a stinger on its back end the better to deal with (insert enemy bacteria description here)." After 10-12 "votes" in this manner I'll advance it one "notch" (a billion years) and we'll repeat the process as I explain what happens to it in the time period in between. It will grow from a tiny bacterium to a small aquatic creature, and I'll do this three times before we hit the Advancement Stage. Over Conception -> Advancement -> Emergence, its appearance and shape will change based on your ideas and what I am inspired by.

The Advancement Stage is the same as Conception, only after each person voting, I'll respond with an "Okay, but this happens" evolution to counter it. Each voter will get three chances to add to the evolution; this could be anything from a social connection to prefered environment to what it eats or if it discovers new food sources. During Advancement I'll be putting some serious tidewater pool predators around to give you a twist or two, and you'll need to suggest evolutions or adaptations to deal with them. The small creature will become medium sized at the end of Advancement, but not completely intelligent just yet. Advancement ends with the decision whether to remain in the ocean or emerge to land. If you decide to remain in the water I'll adapt the rest of the stages to compensate.

The Emergence Stage brings us to land for the first time, where those critters that have evolved alongside you also have appeared. Survival of the Fittest begins here, and you'll be required to set up a "base" or a defensive area somehow based on instincts and what "tools" you have to work with (adaptations to the body of the creature such as digging claws and the like). All players will get one SA and one FH during the year to better boost chances of survival. No characters per se, SAs and FHs are used for the creature species as a whole. Emergence ends with an Extinction Event of some kind, in which I'll consider how likely such a creation is to make it or break it, and if the creature isn't strong enough, we'll try again. Said Extinction might not even be a meteor impact.

Surviving the year with an ample supply of food and a destruction of predators will advance you to Dominance. It will give you a wider range of tools, environments (and environmental hazards!) and potentially new skills learned that make you rise above your other mammals / reptiles / what have you. By this time you'll probably be moderately intelligent and quite high in population. You won't be completely sapient (think orangutang with a spear; they know how to use it to hunt fish, but lack the dexterity in their fingers to do it well) quite yet but it will be close. Dominance ends upon going further inland and finding a permanent home in another environment away from the beaches you emerged from. Dominance ends with another Extinction Event, this one forcing you underground for a period of time before advancement to Apex.

The Apex stage is very early-man-ish animalistic hunter gathering, with very basic villages and whatnot. A higher difficulty than Dominance, now you've got other potential races and civilizations to deal with, either to war with or introduce trade to as larger predators scour the landscape to eat you all. It will last two years, and each player gets 2 SA and 1 FH for their Early Man character each year. This stage lasts two years before I I make a decision whether your actions have granted Sapience; and Early Man characters will not be saved to Sapience.

Sapience is just that; another "adventure" as you deal with the outside world, the inside world, and plot to aid (or obliterate) the races around you with prehistory tools, the discovery of agriculture and other such useful things, true independant thought besides food and breeding, and the discovery of magic and the divine... whatever form it might take. 3 SA and 1 FH per year for each character, the direct ancestor of whatever characters wind up in the Medieval period. Direct Ancestors are not saved.

Lording over the other proto civilizations for 5 years will advance you to Medieval. This is the usual Civilization at this point, and will come with one or two last minute adaptations before some other huge story begins and lasts for 15 years. At this point, I -will- be trying to kill you. It won't be complete and utter destruction, but I'm -not- going to make survival easy.

Anyway, let's see who's interested. I'll start next weekend. If you've got suggestions to improve on this basic framework, I'm all ears. If you don't think it'd be a fun experiment, then say so.
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kida
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Re: Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by kida » Sat Oct 25, 2014 7:51 pm

Sound good, count me in ;)

If you want to make it more "survival of the fittest" you can have 2 groups PvP, each stage only one group advance.

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Aegis J Hyena
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Re: Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Sat Oct 25, 2014 8:17 pm

That... is an idea. Two groups. We'll see. A lot of this looks good on paper but I'll only really test it once I kick it off; if it turns out to be bad in practice, then that'll be it for me.
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Synch
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Re: Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by Synch » Sat Oct 25, 2014 9:39 pm

I'm interested.
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BadgeAddict
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Re: Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by BadgeAddict » Mon Oct 27, 2014 7:32 am

I'm interested also..

keep in mind people, he is threatening to never make another Civ, and has done what he can to make things less complicated. So, while you're idea is great Kida...if it doesn't work out, then Aegis will just leave the game....forever....which will make me sad for at least 4 hours....so, I would rather not include PVP elements simply because I want this Civ to last awhile....

perhaps thats selfish of me...but i don't really care if it is.

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Aegis J Hyena
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Re: Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Mon Oct 27, 2014 8:51 am

"Threatening"? I'm bored of doing these things. :P They've "been done" at this point, it'll be time to do something else fun after this one. I'm just interested in seeing how a Spore-esque one would end up.
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Capricornian/

It's Always Something. No, don't give me that look. It's Always Something.

Nolandking
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Re: Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by Nolandking » Tue Oct 28, 2014 8:31 am

Am all for this.
Haven't played this signature game in a long while but I'll try it out again.

Help these poor little guys hatch.
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BadgeAddict
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Re: Civ 7: Rising From The Ashes Of Failure

Post by BadgeAddict » Tue Oct 28, 2014 8:31 am

He already posted in the Game forum due to lacking in the patience department...though I'm unsure of how many of us there will be.

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