Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Council Room => Topic started by: Sigma on July 29, 2013, 04:53:58 PM

Title: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Sigma on July 29, 2013, 04:53:58 PM

Quote from: Sigma on July 25, 2013, 01:19:06 PM

I noticed that at a given time there are usually between 5 and 8 Guests logged on here, which means there's a good chunk of people that are reading out stuff here but haven't joined.

We may be able to encourage them to contribute, and here is how: turn AC2 into the new Network Node. We can set-up an email for people to send their faction txts and graphics to, and make weekly/biweekly/monthly faction design contests for all comers. That way in addition to bringing in more activity we would expand AC2's stock of faction options.

Can we discuss this as well? I think it would be a great way to hike activity a bit and get new people who don't really post all that much to get into the swing of things; plus it would boost our supply of custom factions beyond what was recovered from The Network Node.

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 29, 2013, 05:09:41 PM

I think there's a good idea there, but I can't see it working.  I'd certainly support an attempt.  Tell me more.

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Sigma on July 29, 2013, 05:41:26 PM

We'd just need to start small, is all. We obviously have a lot of people who lurk here and read what we do, but not as many contribute. So the first round we'd probably just rely on our current posters (Green1, Jarlwolf, Kilkakon, ete, you, me, etc) to supply the factions, then we bundle the factions all together into a set and vote on the winner, and the winner gets a badge. There we go, we've now increased our Custom Faction stash by 10%, and we've potentially sparked interest.

In subsequent rounds, the barrier to entry should be lowered to allow new members or people who aren't members to join. For one we wouldn't require graphics, which means that the entrants would only need to submit the txt files; then we could as a reward for the best ones have our members create graphics for them, giving them further incentive to submit their ideas.

Each round could have a theme in the way that several of the Nextwork Node sets did, i.e The Progenitor Civil War, the Aquatic Set, the Second Mission, the Return to Earth. That way the sets could be thematically consistent instead of just a pile of random statistics.

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 29, 2013, 05:50:23 PM

For that matter, why not allow submission of art w/o .txt?  Some of us are only interested in the creative part - makes for a good partnership with those tech types who only care about stats and playability.

I doubt putting up an email is a problem, but what I'm trying to figure out is how to package/display such a thing to get people's attention and submissions. 

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Sigma on July 29, 2013, 07:19:15 PM

For one you could post it on the Front Page. For two, I don't know exactly how this board software works but can you have global annoucements that will appear on all subforums?

We could also advertise it on other forums (Civ forums, Apolyton, whatever I don't really know much about the community).

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 29, 2013, 07:20:27 PM

I'm going to call sisko's attention to this...

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 29, 2013, 08:36:11 PM

I do think there's a wonderful idea in there, and hope we can make it work. ;b;

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Green1 on July 29, 2013, 09:31:12 PM

Quote from: Sigma on July 29, 2013, 07:19:15 PM

For one you could post it on the Front Page. For two, I don't know exactly how this board software works but can you have global annoucements that will appear on all subforums?

We could also advertise it on other forums (Civ forums, Apolyton, whatever I don't really know much about the community).

Civ Fanatics regularly sends folks here for things they can not answer themselves. The other boards are kind of deadish. Even so, If I was a forum mod of a dieing board, I would raise my eyebrows if some interloper came and started trying take active posters!

Then again, even with GOG release, this game is quite old. You are not going to get the traffic of, say, Civ V or even Age of Wonders 3.

The main thing is, while new folks are cool, I kind of like smaller community here. It is a lot more intimate than say a gargantuan board like MMOChampion where you can post something cool and it is lost in the noise 5 minutes later.

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 29, 2013, 09:54:13 PM

--Sure, but I'd like enough noise to keep me entertained much more of the time...

Title: Re: Submit your faction (NN style)
Post by: Green1 on July 30, 2013, 04:52:24 AM

Quote from: BUncle on July 29, 2013, 09:54:13 PM

--Sure, but I'd like enough noise to keep me entertained much more of the time...

lol.

Maybe if AC2 comes out or there is some open source project that makes it into code and not CFC forum thread. Then again, activity on the level of AoW2 Heaven would give you entertainment.

But really, 4x boards are pretty tame and intellectual. If you want the banhammer to keep from getting rusty (at least towards actual humans) and to show your nerdrage powers, you need something like TeamXbox forums.

That said, this is a cult classic.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: JarlWolf on July 30, 2013, 11:08:13 AM

I agree to this and support this fully. And plus I'd love to create more factions:

I actually had an idea of doing an entire "Return to Earth" style set, with the storyline being

Play factions on Earth at the same time the Centauri folk landed on Chiron: On a nuclear blasted Earth with scarce resources, crazy factions and warlords and mutant humans to replace mindworms. It'd be a total conversion for SMAC.

I also had an idea of starting up a little contest thing myself:

A forum personalities faction, we have factions based on various members of the forum personalized by each person. They'd have custom leaderheads based either on their real life pictures or preferred avatars/images people can identify them with, and it'd be mainly a comical take on factions in general, and the ideologies of each faction would be extremely humorous and insane.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: sisko on July 30, 2013, 12:45:54 PM

@Sigma: i'm a big fan of all forum competitions and i'm game when it comes to organise one.
still, there's a little problem: just look at the GotM and the AC ladder. neither of them was a big success and the increase in forum activity was only marginal (..if any). ;q;
on the other hand, maybe we were targeting the wrong audience. after all, the modders are by far the most active when it comes to participating in more than one section of the forum.. ;b;

Quote from: Sigma

For one you could post it on the Front Page. For two, I don't know exactly how this board software works but can you have global annoucements that will appear on all subforums?

this can be done.

Quote from: Sigma

We could also advertise it on other forums (Civ forums, Apolyton, whatever I don't really know much about the community).

no problem (as long as the idea is starting to generate enough activity).

Quote from: JarlWolf

A forum personalities faction, we have factions based on various members of the forum personalized by each person. They'd have custom leaderheads based either on their real life pictures or preferred avatars/images people can identify them with, and it'd be mainly a comical take on factions in general, and the ideologies of each faction would be extremely humorous and insane.

this sounds like the theme for a future round of the contest. ..why not the first one?

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: sisko on July 30, 2013, 02:15:14 PM

Quote from: JarlWolf

A forum personalities faction..

i have somewhere on the web such a faction. the finder gets 200EC from me!

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Sigma on July 30, 2013, 02:18:07 PM

Quote from: sisko on July 30, 2013, 12:45:54 PM

Quote from: JarlWolf

A forum personalities faction, we have factions based on various members of the forum personalized by each person. They'd have custom leaderheads based either on their real life pictures or preferred avatars/images people can identify them with, and it'd be mainly a comical take on factions in general, and the ideologies of each faction would be extremely humorous and insane.

this sounds like the theme for a future round of the contest. ..why not the first one?

I dare say the only way this could work would be for us to Secret Santa each other. Which I am wholeheartedly in favor of.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 30, 2013, 03:24:17 PM

Sigma, tell us what you can about the Network Node - it would probably be useful in promoting this project, and a lot of us into custom factions are just plain curious.

...

This dovetails with a project Darsnan's talked about -to put together a collection of every custom faction out there- and a couple of things ete's already working on -to index custom factions on the AC2 wiki, and to fix up/complete many of the ones that could use it-.  It would be good to get their input.  I guess I'll send both gentlemen a heads-up...

...

Quote from: sisko on July 30, 2013, 02:15:14 PM

Quote from: JarlWolf

A forum personalities faction..

i have somewhere on the web such a faction. the finder gets 200EC from me!

I pitched the forum personalities factions idea about 4.5 years ago, and have actually made three.  I have to disqualify myself from sisko's challenge, as I'm sure he's talking about one DrazharLn and I made...

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: sisko on July 30, 2013, 03:41:05 PM

Quote

I pitched the forum personalities factions idea about 4.5 years ago, and have actually made three. I have to disqualify myself from sisko's challenge, as I'm sure he's talking about one DrazharLn and I made...

..but you do qualify for the first round.

..and stop giving away hints.  :mad:

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Sigma on July 30, 2013, 04:12:21 PM

Well the way that the Network Node worked was that they had an email that you could send your custom factions to, and every couple weeks to a month they would release a seven faction set for download. The barrier for entry was really low-- all you needed was to send a .txt and maybe some instructions on how you'd like the faction to look and they'd make it work. NN always did a great job with base graphics but I always felt like their leader pics tended to be somewhat lacking, though I have no idea whether that was the fault of the contributors or not.

What this did was encourage each contributor to put forth their best effort, since only seven factions would be featured in each set. Then of course the editors for NN would decide which faction was the best and would give it some kind of reward. I remember I won an award for most enlightened faction for the Aardom Federation (I was really proud of this back then!). Then after that set was done you'd start working on the next set. About half the time there was a theme to the set, like the aforementioned types but I also remember a Joke pack that I submitted an insane asylum to (but didn't win). That way you have a balance of structured sets vs free sets.

I'd suggest that rankings be arranged for each set by the following criteria. Since there are only seven factions per set there shouldn't be too many awards handed out, otherwise they become meaningless.

Best Overall Faction
Most Original Faction
Best Graphics
Best Leader

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 30, 2013, 04:14:20 PM

That's a good system for keeping a faction artist in projects...

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Sigma on July 30, 2013, 09:08:46 PM

Plus if everyone who can do faction art all works together it would be easier. One person makes leader portraits, another does bases, another logos and diplomacy and that way no one person has to put together all those pcxs (unless they want to that is).

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 30, 2013, 09:13:26 PM

That assumes plenty of dependable volunteers - it's probably a detail we'll have to work out as we go.  I'm very fond of collaborating, but it's not for everyone.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Green1 on July 30, 2013, 11:22:56 PM

Well, I suppose I can put out my Exterminatus guys when they are ready.

I am still play testing them and may tweak some of their numbers yet. But, they are meant to be a companion and enemy to the Antimind. So far, so good. that Robotic Assembly Plant actually is not too overpowered considering.

I really should have screenshot this MASSIVE battle one test run between them and Jarlwolf's Crimson Comrades when I was running it in scenario.  I had to stop and watch the two AIs.

txt is done. I am using Marr's graphics but still trying to tweak the flag color to make if different and readable - for now...

Post it after I try out one more tweak or two. I do not like throwing thinks up without thought that others might enjoy.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 31, 2013, 01:05:25 AM

I gotta say, the more I think about this project, the better I like it.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: JarlWolf on July 31, 2013, 01:23:36 AM

If you need graphics for the Exterminatus let me know.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style)
Post by: Green1 on July 31, 2013, 02:08:47 AM

Quote from: JarlWolf on July 31, 2013, 01:23:36 AM

If you need graphics for the Exterminatus let me know.

I may have to take you up on that, being that I have almost zero artistic talent.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style) - administrative thread
Post by: sisko on July 31, 2013, 11:30:25 AM

@Sigma: can you draft a presentation (including a rules section maybe) for the contest? nothing fancy. just the way you see it...

EDIT:
here's the link to what's left of the early NN site: http://web.archive.org/web/20011103234742/http://networknode.org/ (http://web.archive.org/web/20011103234742/http://networknode.org/)
from what i see they had a file of the month award. in the third round (a themed round, i think) the winner was a fan-fiction file by Vultur (which BTW, you can read in planet Tales now).
maybe we should do the same thing.. give the participants more options for the themed rounds: factions, factions sets, fiction, maps, even scenarios..

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style) - administrative thread
Post by: sisko on July 31, 2013, 12:39:06 PM

Quote

I'd suggest that rankings be arranged for each set by the following criteria. Since there are only seven factions per set there shouldn't be too many awards handed out, otherwise they become meaningless.

Best Overall Faction
Most Original Faction
Best Graphics
Best Leader

these should be awarded every year? or maybe we can have transmittable badges for each of the categories based on perpetual polls?

Title: Re: Submit your faction! (NN style) - administrative thread
Post by: Sigma on July 31, 2013, 03:05:25 PM

Quote from: sisko on July 31, 2013, 12:39:06 PM

Quote

I'd suggest that rankings be arranged for each set by the following criteria. Since there are only seven factions per set there shouldn't be too many awards handed out, otherwise they become meaningless.

Best Overall Faction
Most Original Faction
Best Graphics
Best Leader

these should be awarded every year? or maybe we can have transmittable badges for each of the categories based on perpetual polls?

These would be awarded on a Per-Set basis, and then every seven sets we could go all hunger games and quarter quell the winners, pitting the best factions from each set against each other to figure out which is the best.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: JarlWolf on July 31, 2013, 03:08:57 PM

Was there ever a way to make all the factions AI and just observe? always wondered that.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Green1 on August 01, 2013, 01:41:31 AM

Quote from: JarlWolf on July 31, 2013, 03:08:57 PM

Was there ever a way to make all the factions AI and just observe? always wondered that.

Actually, there is. I do it all the time.

Go to Scenario while in game. Select Switch Sides/Change View. A choice will come up asking you if you wish to assume control or watch computer play. Select watch computer play. Go back and reenable omniscient mode. Have fun watching everyone destroy or act stupid and get destroyed.

If you are wanting to run simulations and do not want to press "end turn" all the time, just put a weight on the enter key. Head off, then come back a while later and see the results.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: JarlWolf on August 01, 2013, 09:33:00 AM

That's actually really helpful for testing my factions! Thank you.

Edit: I did that, and what happens is that I still control my faction but I can see all the others or I can play each factions turn. Its not letting me pick an option to just "watch" unfortunately.

Edit 2: nevermind I figured it out

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 01, 2013, 08:13:32 PM

Sigma, would I be correct that you're willing to be in charge of this project?  What do we need to do to get started?

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Sigma on August 01, 2013, 08:34:08 PM

Right now I need time. I'm preparing to move to a new apartment in another state so I won't be able to do much in the way of administrating; but once I'm relocated I should be much more available.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 01, 2013, 08:38:32 PM

Okydoke; I don't think there's any harm in taking the time to get all planned out and ducks in a row first, anyway - I just don't want to wait so long we forget to start...

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Green1 on August 02, 2013, 03:48:16 AM

If we just start posting the factions, the lurkers will snatch 'em up. No need for all official and such...

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 02, 2013, 04:13:42 AM

I'm all for some lurker-bait.  That's how you catch members.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: JarlWolf on August 02, 2013, 06:09:50 AM

I got ideas for factions, and I got time to do them.... its just motivation to get off my arse and do them.


Tell me what you want for your exterminatus buildings Green, that'll stir the juices up.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: ete on August 02, 2013, 11:50:21 AM

hm, I very much like the idea of having a process for getting approved factions graphics and checks and stuff. I'm not quite so sure about having specific sets of seven released, or about limiting releases to winners.

I'd favor a system which works like:
Start monthly (?) thread
Members submit outlines for factions
Members submit their text files+basic idea of faction look, and make a usable download of the text file available for playtesting
Users give feedback
Artists take on projects

At the end of the month factions which are:
1. Finished (have all the required graphics, not broken text files)
2. Have fitting flavor (fit fairly well into the storyline)
3. Are balanced (factions intended to be unbalanced should be available in two versions, one balanced and one not)
4. Are somewhat interesting/unique

are placed in the core faction pack, which is a collection of all good finished factions which you can drop into your games and use. Factions which don't fit the above criteria are placed in the full faction pack, which contains all the custom factions ever.

Having only two faction packs simplifies things for the user. Rather than downloading things one by one, they just download a single file (core=quality factions, full=lots of factions), extract it, and are ready to go.

I'd be happy to give awards out (maybe once every 3-6 months) for things like:

Best artist
Best overall faction
Most interesting faction
Most helpful user
Best balancer
etc

and have a forum wide anonymous vote on them, but generally prefer co-operation being encouraged on factions rather than competition. We could have something in the postbit listing how many factions a user has had approved for the core set, which could be competed over somewhat, but input and assistance is good.

Joke factions and those for TCMs would need to be handled differently, probably TCM ones just included with the TCM and jokes.. should they be allowed in the core set ever? Maybe if they're especially well made/have some purpose?

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Green1 on August 02, 2013, 12:37:16 PM

I beg to differ with you, ete.

Most of the time when folks look for a custom faction, they are looking for something very specific. Let's say I want a third alien. I do not want a pack. I just want that cool one alien. If I want the Borg, I just want that one Borg, not the entire TNG universe. It is kind of like action figures when we were kids. I may want He-man and Master -at- Arms, but Orko sucks.

That said, I do think an AC2 faction pack of things from the Network Node and our own that fit in with story would maybe get some bites.

Speaking of Network Node factions: Sisko.... I just read Planet tales. I knew Juridic was one of the higher quality faction but I had no idea there was that much story behind it.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: ete on August 02, 2013, 01:10:17 PM

For finding specific factions, we have the wiki. Categorized and searchable. However as I found it is an extremely long and repetitive process to put a large number of factions onto your computer if they're in separate downloads, and even if you're only ever going to use 3-4 of them, the time saved from installing the core pack in one go rather than setting them up one by one is significant.

Basically: Installing the whole pack, then searching the wiki for which ones you want to use/include in each game is much more efficient than searching for what you want then having to download/unzip/edit alphax each time you find one you want.

Additionally, maintaining just one or two downloads for faction packs is likely significantly easier than maintaining/updating a large number of individual downloads, though having individual downloads may be an option as well if someone is willing to put in some of extra work (maybe 5-10 hours of repetitive copying links back and forth to the wiki) to set them up properly (meaning: have it so you can update both downloads from one source, otherwise you get edit conflicts in factions and double the effort to update faction downloads forever). If there is demand and the more urgent projects I have don't need attention I'll do it, but it's not a trivial amount of effort and seems much less useful to me.

Title: Re: Submit your faction! - Alpha Contest - administrative thread
Post by: Green1 on August 02, 2013, 01:39:42 PM

Quote from: JarlWolf on August 01, 2013, 09:33:00 AM

That's actually really helpful for testing my factions! Thank you.

Edit: I did that, and what happens is that I still control my faction but I can see all the others or I can play each factions turn. Its not letting me pick an option to just "watch" unfortunately.

Edit 2: nevermind I figured it out

Yeah, I learned that a while back from a thread on CFC.

There was a guy who was testing to find out what the strongest AI was. Overwhelmingly, it was Yang.

However, I think this was pre-Kyrub's terraforming AI port of his 444 experiment to SMAX. I have found with the terraforming AI that is in Kyrub;s that some factions are somewhat more powerful and deadly. I also have noticed crawlers, but the AI uses it differently than we do. And Deidre.. and those condensers..arghh... Both Kyrub's SMAX patch PLUS and Yitzi's has this. Probably needs to be done again in light of those developments.

But yeah, excellent tool to test AIs use of factions when you do not have the time for 3 games.

I really should have screen shot something for you, Jarlwolf. The Exterminatus and Crimson Comrades were locked in this EPIC battle! The sheer numbers Exterminatus was putting out! Thanks to the old scenario/auto AI trick!