Civ 5 - the MMO

#1 I would love it. It could be done.

#2 Yes, it was a tossup between this and my current project. Forbidden Dawn won due to the fact that it was our first game, much less MMO so we decided to go with a game that would be 'easier' to program and would have a 'spin off' and 'expansion' capability.

Civ could be expanded, but not really a whole lot involved.

#3 I don't know. When I think of a MMO-strategy title, I think of a saturation point for active strategy and management in such games and wonder when too much is too much to manage or care about managing. I like finding people who have excellent strategies and working with/against them in such titles. It is an interesting thought, but the MMO-point is high-saturation, and I am having difficulty seeing a real benefit to strategy unless you give each player only specific unit duties, which would then beg the question "who is the strategic mastermind who allows units to perform specific ways and how do the players behind those units feel about such a role?"

I don't know. The thought of MMO-Civ just makes me question how saturation kicks gameplay and strategy in the head repeatedly with jackboots.

#4 Well, my thoughts on it were that you'd have to mix some RPG in with the RTS. You couldn't just do straight RTS as you obviously have way too much micromanagement involved. You'd obviously have to remove any 'timers' meaning you need to start doing things in real-time and convert the strategy over to this.

You'd also need to cap players at a certain point so they don't end up with 10k troops, cities, etc.

#5 I think that this idea would suck worse then a vaccuum cleaner modified to work with a jet engine at full power with afterburner engaged.

#6 Very constructive Tom, but does the jet engine allow for hovering?

What about it would suck in other words =P

#7 David "RM" Michael's game, Artifact, is an online multiplayer RTS. Free demo, for anyone who'd like to try.

I'm not sure of the maximum players, though.

GEWar is a very basic MMORTS that uses Google Earth as it's backdrop.

#8 There are a number of spacewar clones which utilize empire management and such through a text interface as well as some that have made the graphical shift. And I can see the purpose of those. Looking at Artifact reminded me of some of these games. I think my difficulty is the concept of taking Civ and moving it to a MMO, not creating a persisten online RTS title. Though there was a saturation point with Space War and its ilk as well, leading to either massive empires which could not whittle each other apart or a constant stream of restarts to gain a foothold which was often fixed by rezoning to place people on a similar playing field...which tended to irritate users (so did patching exploits in the system, though).

I love Civ Online. I love Starcraft online. But my head is grappling with the fun factor. Perhaps doing something like only allowing connecting areas to attack each other, therefore blobbing out the bases or something. I'm not sure. And then having empire spaces which are "empty" for new players (or those who have been decimated).

@Eric
GEWar looks interesting. I'll have to try it out. It's good to see people playing with Google Earth. I downloaded Artifact a while back but never actually installed it.

#9 Ogame is one MMO web based strategy game I was foolish enough to play for a while. One obvious problem: those obsessive enough to play 24/7 have a massive advantage over those who play for an hour a day. Another problem: playing hours need to be strictly timetabled or your empire is vulnerable. (Some of) its FAQs claim that the game rewards "hard work": I reckon a game should reward skill and cunning.