Aurora Multiplayer Game

[sublight (OP)]

One of our original players has expressed interest in dropping out. If anyone would like to jump in to take over the Mars faction in a multiplayer game send me a PM. The game is currently moving slightly slower than 2x 1-year turns every week.

Edit: Slot filled.

[Geoffroypi]

Any news about your multiplayer game ?

[sublight (OP)]

The game is currently playing out in the Aurora_Fiction sub-forum under the name "Children of Sol: Multiplayer Aurora"

The game is moving fairly quick time wise (almost 20 game years have passed), but there has been minimal conflict so far. Since conflict makes the story, I've had to invent/exaggerate every scrap of disquiet such as colony overcrowding unrest and even officer health reports to find material to write about. Good exercise for the imagination. Mostly I've just sat back, run turns, and observed the different empire building strategies. I'll tell you this: different players give much more subtle diversity to factions than running them all yourself. 

Anything in particular you were curious about?

[Panopticon]

I think we are on the brink of some potentially interesting stuff though. Pretty much all Aurora games are slow during the first couple decades, especially if you are doing a conventional or mostly conventional start. You need a lot of time to tech up to do anything.

The next time one gets run perhaps we could either skip directly to full on TN stuff with fleets and everything, or run 5 year increments or something until we get to an interesting point.

Figuring it out is a work in progress for sure.

[Geoffroypi]

Wow i'm impressed ! honestly i though the player would quickly loose interest/be always absent.  I also though the multiplayer aspect would be unmanagable for the SM, apparently i was wrong. 

Is it possible to join your current game as a very minor faction (like a small moon declaring independance) ?

[sublight (OP)]

@Geoffroypi
I'm afraid it would be too disruptive to try stuffing a 4th faction in, but I'll remember your name incase I ever have to recruit a replacement.

@ Panopticon
I might have been a little optimistic in skipping 'only' the first decade after a conventional start. Either using a longer time skip or having the first few turns be multiyear sounds like a good recommendation. Still, with jump gates going up and the Children of Sol branching out onto the Galactic map I have to agree that the potential for interesting developments is increasing. 

[Geoffroypi]

Ok .
If one day you need a remlacement/governor/vassal or whatever is useful for your game tell me, this summer, though, i might not be able to play. 

[sublight (OP)]

Recruiting a replacement, again.

((This is starting to resemble a multifaction succession game))

The commander of Mars is suffering technical difficulties, and since none of us know how much longer they will last permission was granted to look for a replacement.

The game news-discousion thread is under Aurora Fiction: Children of Sol Multiplayer

If anyone is interested in joining, just reply to this thread.

Edit: Slot filled.

[Garfunkel]

Good that you managed to replace me so quickly and good luck to the new commander of Mars!

[Geoffroypi]

Thancks Garfunkel, luck is exaclty what i need if i don't want to have my head on a venusian spike .

 Multiplayer reveals a greater potential in Aurora that allies both the freedom of tabletop games and the power of a computer . I wonder if its feasible to allow external persons or 'retired' players to participate in the Roleplay of the game. Not having a purely executive power (like the SM, Earth ,mars and venus players) but could greatly influence the course of the game by they own words, We all know that the pen is mightier than a quadruple  thermonuclear fission missiles launcher (I'm not convinced, though    ).

[Ektoras]

I really like the experience of Multiplayer Aurora. Real players make the game more challenging, especially with close homeworlds. Every move you make has to be the right one, or you lose time. Diplomacy and trade now become very important.

For the player is not time consuming to plan their faction turn.

Only negative, is that you have to wait some time to play (plan your turn).

sublight how much time you need to run the six month turn?

[sublight (OP)]

Hmmm.
Advancing time: 1.5 hours
Going slow to take notes: +0.5 hours
Reviewing old save for spy reports (every other 6month block) + 0.5 hours
Posting Turn summaries: +0.5 hours

Total: About 3 hours.

[Panopticon]

Not terrible, during the old game before my computer gave out (which you can find in my fiction section) turns for me became a day long process. Though we hadn't figured out the dropbox method at the time and I had something like 6 players. I think you have hit on the most efficient way to to play.

I'm rather having fun myself, real people being involved makes it much more entertaining.

[sublight (OP)]

Curiosity, is anyone interested in viewing the save files showing the starting setup/early years?

I've been keeping a yearly archive of the "Children of Sol" multiplayer game to reference for historical reports, but now that our game is nearing the 25th year mark the files are starting to make a minor dent in my hard drive. I figured I'd ask if anyone wanted them for either curiosity or as a pre-made multi-faction scenario before I started deleting.

[Vynadan]

The database is actually very easy to compress. Even a several hundred MB .mdb compresses into a fairly small archive.
(I just tested a 70 MB database with LZMA2 compression into a .7z, which turned it into ~7 MB)