Registration and Setting Up

[David West]

The registration screen will capture the usual stuff, username, password and email address, but I want to keep the actual amount of data needed to a minimum. The email address is needed in case someone forgets their password and also to send an activation email to, I want to reduce the chance of people signing up for multiple accounts. Any extra data such as profiles, location etc can be added by the user in the in-game menus, if they want to do this.

Once registered, the first time the player logs in they will be asked for some information to “customise” their country/city/. I want to give players an interesting few choices to make which will shape how the game unfolds for them and also gives them more of a feeling of ownership, that they have created something unique and to their own tastes.

For example, they will be given the chance to name their capital city (the first city each player is given is their capital), name their country and choose a flag and colour scheme.

There will then be a set of choices to make, which I’ve not fully established and need some suggestions for.

One possibility was to allow players to choose the type of government their country has, as follows:

Democracy – Advantage: More income from taxation Disadvantage: Cannot have conscription hence smaller armies
Communism – Advantage: Larger armies at the start of the game Disdvantage: Some income lost due to corruption
And so on.

I will also allow the player the chance to influence what type of country he has, by allocating resource points between certain aspects as follows:

Population – Gain more people in your capital and therefore more taxes and people to recruit to the army
Resources – Have bigger stockpiles of oil etc
Money – More money in the treasury
Infrastructure – More factories etc
Army – More units
Tech – better tech

All of the above will allow players to approach the game in their own way and try out different strategies.

For example you might want to start with a big army to see if you can quickly expand and capture more land and cities. However the penalty of being weaker in terms of factories etc might mean you struggle to produce enough later on.

Each choice would be just as viable as the other but would need working on the make the balance of the game fair.

[imkrazie]

Try not to make it to complicated

[David West]

I intend making the registration very simple, just username, password and email.

When the player first logs into the game after confirming the email is valid (the usual clicking on a link sent in an email stuff) then he will get a screen asking for the details of his city/country etc.

Until this has been done his city wont exist in the game and so there is no risk of being attacked until fully active.

[imkrazie]

Also try not to make the game itself to complicated...one of the things i dislike about some are how hard it is for newbies to get started in the game

[David West]

I'll probably make it simple in the first incarnation and add more features as time goes by and people request or suggest them. I don't think it will be all that complex as I will have trouble coding it if it is!

[Floodland]

Personalisation is a good idea. Let people upload graphics (or link to pictures) for their flags, leader portraits etc. Multiple accounts can ruin some games, so on Torn City (for example) they seem to spend a vast amount of effort catching and punishing people sending money or weapons between accounts with the same IP address. This takes a whole team of admins to enforce for a game of this size.

Simple games are easy to pick up but don't always hold their appeal. Complicated games take more effort but can be more satisfying. So as you suggest, maybe start it off simple but then let certain actions or achievements unlock extra functions?

And be careful not to steal too many ideas from Civilisation!

[David West]

I agree with you about multis, hopefully I can sort out ways to avoid them being too much trouble and also prevent script run accounts too.

I never steal ideas, just borrow them!

Civilisation stole a lot of ideas from board games anyway