Super fast 16+ PBEM DG? Or: "The more the faster!"

[Markstar]

Hi everyone!
Maybe you have noticed my increased activity for the past days - well, I had one of my final university tests Monday and now should have a little more free time I hope.

Anyways, in one of the endless hours of waiting for the 8 player game I had the idea to start a (last) grand game.

The problem is (as you all know) that with 8 players the probability of a person being on holiday, busy or whatever are pretty high, so getting even one turn a week is rather fast.

Now I was thinking (don't know if it has been done before) that we could start a mixture of the ISDG, the SG and the "normal" PBEM:
- Every "player" actually consists of 2 (or more) people who want to play together and who have to play the turn within, let's say, 24 hours.
- There is an admin who oversees that the game keeps going.
For example, if one group doesn't play within the next 24 hours, the admin plays the turn by just hitting "enter"). That means the admin either keeps track of the turns, sees that a group is stalling or he is contacted by another group who is looks at the turn tracker and finds that the game is not moving. That way the admin-job is not too much work since keeping track of a game is quite some work.
- How each group plays is up to them;
For example I can imagine a SG principle where each player is in charge for a couple of turns (but the others watch keep track as well of course), or one main player with one or two backup-players who jump in if the main player can't play. Also interesting might be a "receive-first-play-first" style where the person who checks his email first is playing the turn. Of course there are many more options - as I said, it's up to the group.

I was thinking about posting this at CFC and CGN as well since we might have trouble finding enough people here. Plus, it might spice things up a little.

I would volunteer to keep track of the groups and maybe even make a timetable similar to the ones I made for the "Fair Starts" game.
Talking of fair starts, I would prefer balanced starts or maybe even a totally balanced map. Since (to my limited knowledge about map making) it is pretty hard to make an ABSOLUTE fair map I'd offer to make it and post it so that everyone knows about it. But of course I'd prefer an unknown map as well so we'd need someone to make the map.

Anybody interested???

P.S.: Of course ideas/improvements/comments are always welcome!!!

Edit: Alright, here a preliminary (!) list, just tell me which team you want to be on and I'll edit i.
It might be a good idea to talk to the members before joining an empty group (otherwise everybody would want to play with Kemal and anarres, I guess ).

I'll wait for everybody to post (or pm me) which team they want to be on (or if they want to start a new one). Note that it is NO PROBLEM to start a new team even if you only have a limited amount of time since all you need is somebody who complements you (for example, if you can't play on weekends it might be a good idea to have at least one guy on board who can).

[The Civant Alliance] - civantalliance_ AT_gmx.net (7th)
- Markstar (can play 24/7 - literally )
- Whomp (busy until september)

[Engineer] - mattjakeTAgwtcTODnet; jdmcbrTAgmailTODcom; gramiamTAgmailTODcom (1st)
- romeothemonk
- grahamiam
- bed_head7 (busy right now)

[Brotherhood of Nod] - kemal_ AT_cqp.nl (3rd)
- Eldakkar
- Kemal

[Milfhunters] - beamATciv3duelzoneDOTcom (5th)
- Beam
- Kingreno

[A-team] - stevebroad2002_ AT_hotmail.com; mcks01_AT_hotmail_DOT_COM (4th)
- barbu1977
- Melifluous

[Gremlins] - teamgremlins_ AT_yahoo.com (6th)
- kryszcztov
- Darkness
- Banzai

[Team Metal] - teammetal at gmail dot com (8th)
- bathsheba666 (can play once at least once a day)
- Ville

[Killers] - LtKillerM_ AT_civ3duelzone.com; civ3_ AT_straland.com (2nd)
- Matrix
- Lt. Killer M
- Classical Hero

[Lt. Killer M]

I would offer to make a map, and much more I would love to participate, but I will be gone for almost three weeks soon.

great idea!


btw: where IS 8player?

[Darkness]

Very interesting idea!

I'd like to participate, but I must admit that I will be gone/busy from now until august, so anyone who would team up with me should be prepared to play the bulk of the turns until then...

[Markstar]

Well, that's the beauty of it ... it doesn't matter for how long you are gone since you should always have backup.

[grahamiam]

i would like to sign-up for this. i'm having mixed experience with 6 player pbems. Pound was going well till KR's baby, but another over at 'Poly is sooooooo slow (10 turns in about 2 months ) I have no idea what is going on turn-to-turn. this idea would ensure at least a decent pace

[Pastorius]

Actually, according to economic theory more people does not make the game faster

to make a pbem, you need the following inputs:
a biq to play
players to participate.

Now, since the biq is constant, you would actually have diminishing returns from adding more and more players, as the marginal product of players would decline (the math is a two factor product function. The first derivative of the biq is 0 since it is a constant, the first derivative of players is positive, but the second derivative of players is negative since the biq is a constant.


HAH!

[Markstar]

I don't think your approach is applicable here, Paalikles since the number of players is not a simple variable in this equation (because, for example, two players don't make the game twice as fast - but that is not even the goal here).

From what I can tell the problem with most PBEMs is not that ppl don't want to play or totally lose interest, it's more about RL-issues interfering (holydays, family, job). If you can fill these gaps with backup players (for example), the game speed WILL increase -> and the higher the turn output per week is the higher is the interest in the game.

[Whomp]

I would like to join Markstar. I will be in and out over the next three months but with a teammate I think it would work. To add to the speed maybe you could do some locked alliances too.

[barbu1977]

I would like to play.

I'll be around most of the summer (except for a couple of weekends)

[Pastorius]

quote:Originally posted by Markstar

I don't think your approach is applicable here, Paalikles since the number of players is not a simple variable in this equation (because, for example, two players don't make the game twice as fast - but that is not even the goal here).

From what I can tell the problem with most PBEMs is not that ppl don't want to play or totally lose interest, it's more about RL-issues interfering (holydays, family, job). If you can fill these gaps with backup players (for example), the game speed WILL increase -> and the higher the turn output per week is the higher is the interest in the game.

Hehe. I was only joking man. Sorry if it wasnt clear to you