New "Great Game" 2010 - 2300

[mrwacko]

I'm starting a game like the "Great Game" the designers of 2300 AD used to make their universe, and would love to get some more players. You would be running any country existing in 2010 not taken by another player, building it as time progresses to 2300 and beyond, should we keep going.

We currently have twelve players, playing the countries of Russia, India, China, Brazil, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, and Argentina. There's still some room to squeeze a few more folks into Europe (Ukraine, Turkey, maybe Italy), and Africa and the Middle East are available (Iran, Egypt, South Africa, maybe Israel or Iraq). South Korea is also at the outside end of playable. As can be seen, we have a distinct lack of folks for the Mid East and Africa.

Contact me, Luke Wethington, via PM, or at wethington1 (at) yahoo (dot) com. As long as the subject header contains the words "Great Game," you'll bypass the overzealous Yahoo spam filter, and I'll get any messages you send. Feel free to visit the website at https://sites.google.com/site/2300adgame/ for examining what we have up. Not much is there at the moment, but feel free to look.

Edit 1/28/11: Updated taken countries, number of players.

 

[Shyloh]

I'd possibly be interested, but I'm unfamiliar with the concept of how it would work.

How much time is involved?

 

[Horatius314]

The game uses a 2 week turn. Generally 1 week for actions and 1 week for responses to other people's actions. You take your turn when you can. Exactly how long it takes depends on how much thought and planning you put into your turns.

 

[Shyloh]

Well, I kind of gathered that, but was more interested in some of the details on how a "turn" would work. I checked the site, but really didn't see much info on what my turn as a player country would entail. (at least from the perspective of a person who's never played one of these before)

 

[mrwacko]

That's because we're sorta in the process of re-writing the rules. Kinda hard to post them if they don't exist yet. But, luckily, they do now. Just finished the basic rules, so I'll give a rundown of them now. I'm in the process of putting them up on the website too, for all to see.

A "Turn" consists of five years in game. Each country is given an excel spreadsheet which has the country's 5-year GDP in Billions of USD (US$B). From that, you derive your effective budget, based off of your country's level of authoritarianism (China and Russia are the high end, USA is the low end, with various countries falling in between). From this pile of cash, you pay government upkeeps such as military, social, and miscelaneous inefficiencies, as well as public debt interest. Whatever is left over is the money you can use to fund projects, such as tech advances, political actions, and pet projects.

Update on taken countries: USA, India, Brazil, China, Russia, Germany, and the UK are all taken. Top choices for new players include France, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Turkey, South Africa and maybe Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Australia. Those last four kinda fall into the "following relevant large neighbor" category, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

 

[Shyloh]

When do you plan on starting this?

I might be interested in playing Iran or France.

 

[mrwacko]

I plan on starting the first turn (2010 - 2015) within a week, and we'd love to get another player!

Also, another good choice for country selection would be Turkey. Ah, the mayhem associated with getting Turkey into the EU.

 

[DaveChase]

I am starting to have a bit of free time (in about 3 weeks) as farming winds down for the year.

I would be slightly interested in play, and Australia sounds interesting.

Dave Chase

 

[mrwacko]

Awesome, we'd love to have you join up Dave. This game will take a long time to complete though. Each turn is five years of game time, and each turn seems like it'll take two weeks to complete. Assuming we stop exactly at 2300, that's 28 turns, which is 56 weeeks, or just over a year. This assumes we hold to a strict two weeks per turn, period, regardless of circumstances, so it's really more like a year or so.

A friendly reminder to all: The USA, UK, Russia, India, China, Brazil, and Germany are firmly in the taken column. France, Iran, and Australia have also been claimed preliminarily, by potential players. Claim your country now, supplies are limited!

Also, for emails anyone sends: You absolutely must put the words "Great Game" into the subject header, otherwise the overzealous Yahoo Mail spam filter will probably eat your mail. I will look through my spam filter plenty to see if anyone sends mail, but given the volume of spam the average person receives nowadays, the human filter method is subject to a fair amount of inaccuracy.

 

[mrwacko]

It's official, we've finally started the first turn! The 2011 - 2015 turn for players has been set to be due Oct 22nd. So the great diplomatic game begins!

Countries taken include USA, UK, Russia, India, China, Brazil, and Germany. Counties with strong expansion prospects and the ability to actually matter in the world include Iran, Turkey, France, Egypt, and South Africa. On the lower end of playable, but still in fact playable, includes Mexico, Australia, Argentina, and Israel. Email me at wethington1 (at) yahoo (dot) com with the subject "Great Game," or contact me via PM here should you wish to join. You can join at any point in the game, regardless of what turn we're at.

 

[frozenwatch]

Great Game

email sent!

 

[mrwacko]

We're still alive and kicking. 12 players so far. Feel free to email, PM, or otherwise message me. I recommend doing both, for redundancy!