Subgame Discussion

[Physics]

We really lack a full subgame right now. I figure if we had a central
place to discuss general ideas and themes we might be able to build on
the things we have already, like temperature and the virus and all the
other things we have going. Right now, everything's independant and
there's no established goals. So if you have any ideas, at least I'd
like to hear them.

Also, I have a few issues to ask about, in a survey of sorts. First
of all, do you think subgames should only progress once a turn, i.e.
only require player action once a turn? And to the people who have
participated in previous rounds, have all other subgames been one
progression per turn? Do you think having action more than once a
week on the part of the players requires too much activity? How often
would you be available per week to make actions if there were a faster
progressing subgame?

What sort of subgame would you like to see? Do you think that this
being done through a website rules out any particular ideas, or makes
any ideas more favorable for a subgame? Would you prefer subgames to
decide the winner of the round or just give or take points?

Now, I have a few ideas to relate some of the current things, such as
the virus being able to destroy population, or the temperature
affecting the virus, but there'd still be no goals for the subgames.
I think for now we should give a general direction for where we're
planning to go with these things. What about having some mechanism
for war with populations? That would provide competition for players,
with the goal being to conquer the world or something.

[Silverius]

I'd personally like a subgame with 3 turns per Nomicron turn,
preferably a board based game which isn't too heavy on numbers. I
don't really see any big need to tie in existing stuff since there
really is very little existing right now. A subgame might decide the
game, but realistically that doesn't happen (if someone looks like
they might be winning the rules simply get changed ;).

["Looney" Lurie]

Historically, board games with clearly defined goals (e.g. Round 3
Nomichess) have been the most successful subgames. The most usual model
is one move per Nomicron turn, with moves taking effect at the end of
the turn. However, this method is far from set in stone, and I
personally like Silverius' suggestion of three moves per turn. A
non-turn-based subgame was attempted once (Round 4 IceTowers); it
worked, but was not the most successful subgame in the history of
Nomicron (or, for that matter, in that Round; Liff was more popular).

As for rule interaction, perhaps the Genetic Code could affect the
layout of the game board. I have considered using the code itself as a
gameboard--it does have the element of player movement--but it's really
too small.

--- Silverius <silveri...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Silverius]

I get weird visions of Befunge here. Might actually be an idea, some
kind of game board where a move influences some kind of state (memory
cells or whatever) with the goal of bringing the state to a certain
point. If there are instructions which have the effect of changing the
instructions we get a nice nomic symmetry in it.

On Nov 26, 2007 6:20 PM, pavan tallapragada <pav...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, some interesting subgames are definitely called for. I have some ideas
> - to give life to Governors and Population and other things, but I myself am
> quite discouraged. Nobody is proposing new ideas and what is the point in me
> being the lone person proposing rules. Secondly, the Virus and Virus
> unleashed are Blue laws. The Administrator hasn't implemented them and I am
> also busy this whole week. I thought with its reference to other laws and
> making them inapplicable for a turn brings interesting possibilities into
> the game - RFJs, paradoxes etc. But it needs to be implemented first.
>
> -metaloop

[Jef]

If a rule is to have more than one action per turn, I would encourage
using the terms defined in {Rule 201}, using the middle as a way point
for an action (e.g., a player may take such and such an action in the
first half and latter half of the turn).

As for implementations, I will still implement Virus, but I'd like to
change it first (see {Draft 91}). However, I am really not able to
take on more mechanized rule implementations at this point as my time
is very limited these days. I can set up Time Drops for rules that
would just want the contents emailed to the public forum at the end of
the turn, but interpretation would be up to the Officer of the rule.
Likewise with vote attributes like predictions. New Referendum types
are easy for me, as are Smith//Minmax elections.

One thing about past rounds of Nomicron I have noticed--activity of
players is higher when they are more involved in running the game. The
wiki is there to track rules manually, and I can easily link to
external sites if you want to set up your own code or hosting. Also,
I'm open to contributions to the nomicron code base... it is written
in java using spring framework and hibernate and is a relatively
complicated system to understand. It probably needs to be rewritten in
python using Django, but again on the time :). Just ask and I can set
you up with svn access.

So... I welcome new ideas on subgames, but I would encourage you to
think of them in terms of games you'd like to run, or write code to
run. There are many options here, and I think it could enhance the
experience of all Nomicron players.

-Jef