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Hey, folks. Instead of a normal succession/Bloodlines game, I'm going to be pitching something different--a "musical chairs" game, where everyone playing plays a fortress for a week, then passes it on to the next guy. This way, everyone involved gets to play a new fortress (or, sometimes, their old one). And there will be prizes at the end of the contest.
The rules are simple, and follow later in this post. The majority of them were cribbed from SupremeOverlord over on Ars Technica, so consider credit given.
TO JOIN THE GAME
Email (ed [at] edropple [dot] com) with the following information:
-Email subject of "BAY12GAMES: Dwarven Musical Chairs" (this is so my filters pick up on it, any email that does not have this subject will be ignored)
-Your forum name
-Your relative level of experience with the game
-Any attachment-size limits to your email address (for example, GMail is limited to 20MB attachments).
I will respond to your email giving you the email address of the person you will always send your fortress to. If you have a problem with someone else knowing your email address, tough--don't sign up for this game.
At the end, there may be prizes.
PLAYING THE GAME
The main objective of this contest is NOT to eliminate players. The objective is to create as many parallel successful fortresses as possible. Everyone who plays is on the honor system to at least TRY and do a good job. This means that even though you know you're not going to see a given fortress again for maybe 5+ game years, you should try to do the best you can to plan for the future anyways. As an example, when a dwarven caravan comes, and you have a meeting to discuss what you'd like to import the next year, please choose what you think the fortress will actually need. Don't order up a bunch of piccolos and toy boats because you think it'll be funny.
Rules as follows:
1. Each player creates their own starting region and selects their own starting equipment and dwarves, with the restrictions listed below.
2. Every player will recieve the e-mail address of the player "after" them, and will zip up and send their current fortress to that player every Sunday (or earlier if they wish), and then begin to play the fortress they just recieved. (they will also copy me with each game, so in case someone drops off the face of the earth the most recent save will be available).
3. Every player will recieve 1 point for each full season they play with the fortress that is currently "theirs", up to a maximum of 4 points per "session" (i.e., each player gets the most points by playing 1 year per week, but may play more if they want to, and someone too busy one week to play a full year gets partial credit). To make it easy to keep track of, whoever is playing at the moment the season changes gets the point. The exception to the rule of 4 points per session is this: if a player does not complete a full year, the player after him or her can finish the previous player's turn and their own for full points. For example, if Alice plays two seasons, she gets two points; if Bob gets the fortress next, he can play the remaining two seasons of Alice's turn and the four seasons of his own, for 6 points.
4. When a fortress is no longer playable the player whose turn it is AND the previous two players to hold the fortress each lose 5 points. (This is so players do their best to make their fortress survives long-term, not doing their best to sabotage it for the next player.)
5. When there are fewer fortresses than active players, whichever player has the lowest score is removed from the circle of fortress and whoever used to send them their game weekly moves on to send to the next player. (It is possible, if not likely, that before the first fortress dies, one or more players will have withdrawn due to time constraints or personal lives getting in the way, in which case no player removal may be necessary). In the case of a tie, I'll use a random number generator to decide who goes.
6. The game ends when there are only 3 fortresses left. At that point ranking is determined by points of the remaining players.
7. Unless a showstopping bug is found, we will use the current version (.33g) all the way through the end of the contest. This way we don't have to worry about some people not upgrading when a new version comes out.
8. Players are on the honor system not to use any game utilities such as reveal.exe.
Restrictions for start location:
a. Starting region size between 3x3 and 6x6 (there are currently bugs reported with 2x2 areas and anything over 6x6 takes too much CPU time)
b. To at least be mildly challenging, you may not play in an "easy" biome whatsoever--no Joyous Wilds, no Mirthful, no Serene, no Calm.
c. If you start in a region with an aquifer, you must personally penetrate it before sending your fortress on to the next player.
d. You must either start with magma, OR with at least one starting biome with a fair amount of trees ("Woodland" or "heavily forested", or a lot of regions marked "sparse") to allow sufficient crafting.
e. Rename the folder after your Bay 12 Games Forum username. (i.e. I would change the folder from "Region1" to "Blacken")
f. Remember to embark with supplies for building a long-term fortress. Don't show up with a large pile of food but no seeds, for example.
A fortress is defined as "no longer playable" when:
a. There is no food and no immediate way to get more (i.e. no farms with pending harvests, and no animals to hunt/slaughter), OR
b. There is nothing to drink and no immediate way to get more (i.e. no unfrozen water on map, no booze, no plants to run through a still), OR
c. The only dwarves left are non-workers (nobles, babies, children, champions, weaponmasters, injured dwarves, insane dwarves, dwarves in prison), OR
d. There are fewer dwarves left than the year of the game (i.e. fortresses start in 1051, so if it's 1061 and you have less than 10 dwarves), OR
e. The fortress is subjected to a severe flood of water or magma, rendering the majority of it uninhabitable, OR
f. If something else not listed happens that you feel that the fortress you were just mailed is unplayable, it will be evaulated by me.
If a fortress that you receive falls under one of these categories, e-mail me.
At a guess, the game will probably run at least 2 months. If you're not willing to play at least one season a week for that long, don't sign up. If someone doesn't play a full year for two weeks in a row, they'll be removed.
At the end of every player's turn, they will receive an extra point if they upload their maps on DFMA and post it here; they will receive another two extra points if they write up an in-character journal of their fortress and post it in this thread (screenshots are a plus, too), with a link to the DFMA map. (The DFMA map is a requirement in order to get the two points from the journal.) Put some effort into the journals; if it's a couple lines long, I'll LOL at you and won't award points. You guys should know by now what these things require. 
[ January 21, 2008: Message edited by: Blacken ]
[ January 21, 2008: Message edited by: Blacken ]
[ January 27, 2008: Message edited by: Blacken ]
[ January 27, 2008: Message edited by: Blacken ]
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Topic: Dwarven Musical Chairs (Read 19883 times)