AMPU: Number of Players

[vcczar]

Currently the game allows for 8 total players. With the number of politicians in the game, it seems like players might control as many as 100 to 250 politicians at a time. I'm wondering if the number of factions should be increased. 

I'm thinking maybe default at 8 players with the option of expanding this to 12 players or something like that. 

The draw back is that the game will be slower with more players, most likely. It will also likely be more unpredictable. The upside is that people won't be scrolling through 250 politicians to figure out their strategies. 

One thing I'm also considering----waaaaaay down the line---is have every US Rep spot in the game, which would mean adding like 3,000 to 5,000 more politicians, but I won't do that until the game is out and I can get like 20 reliable volunteers or more. 

@MrPotatoTed @ConservativeElector2 @SilentLiberty @Cal @WVProgressive @Rodja @Zenobiyl @Hestia and anyone else interested.

[MrPotatoTed]

I'm all for having as many players as possible, assuming most/all of the players are AI.  And assuming computers can handle it.  I know President Infinity tended to crash if you tried to play with all the candidates on, and that game isn't half as complicated as this one is.

For forum play (which isn't the top priority at this stage of course) more players makes things much more interesting, it's hard to keep a dozen factions happy when you only have five cabinet posts to give out, or whatever.  Of course, more players also slows the game dramatically, and it can be hard to find that many reliable players.

I still have trouble picturing AMPU as a true multiplayer game on the computer.  Admittedly, it might just be that I don't like true multiplayer games because it's either hard to find fellow players, or those players are the kind of people I don't want to play with, or they're not available when I am, or they want to play longer than I do in a session or want to end earlier that I do in a session, etc.  So I say all that with the caveat that I assume this is primarily a single player game.

But yes, I say the more AI factions the merrier -- with the hope that there will be some kind of relationship system with things like "Appointed one of my dude's as Sec of State ++", "Vetoed my proposal to legalize abortion ---", "Same ideology ++++++", etc. 

The more things I have to balance, the better.  And that includes the happiness of the AI players.  Politics make strange bedfellows -- what are we willing to sacrifice to keep on the good side of our own ideology?  Our fellow party members?  Our moderate opponents?  How do we balance it all?  That's the fun of the game, in my mind.

[Hestia]

I like true multiplayer (piggybacking off PotatoTed), but usually I just have one friend who I play with. Thus, not super important I suppose. I echo the concern about playability of 12 players if the game developer is Anthony.

[ConservativeElector2]

6 minutes ago, vcczar said:

Currently the game allows for 8 total players. With the number of politicians in the game, it seems like players might control as many as 100 to 250 politicians at a time. I'm wondering if the number of factions should be increased. 

I'm thinking maybe default at 8 players with the option of expanding this to 12 players or something like that. 

The draw back is that the game will be slower with more players, most likely. It will also likely be more unpredictable. The upside is that people won't be scrolling through 250 politicians to figure out their strategies. 

One thing I'm also considering----waaaaaay down the line---is have every US Rep spot in the game, which would mean adding like 3,000 to 5,000 more politicians, but I won't do that until the game is out and I can get like 20 reliable volunteers or more. 

@MrPotatoTed @ConservativeElector2 @SilentLiberty @Cal @WVProgressive @Rodja @Zenobiyl @Hestia and anyone else interested.

I'd be open to have an option for more players, but a fast running game is very important at least for whether I enjoy a game or not.
 

I think you'll definitely get volunteers once the game is out. Ideally players will be able to add their own politicians, and share these files with the community. It'd be perfect if duplicates were detected after someone adds the downloaded politicians.

Another thing I'd be considering is allowing more reps per (big) state already or lieutenant governors or something like that. We have got so much more people, which makes me fearing too many of them will come into the game without ever holding any office if we don't have more offices to fill. I know eventually we'll get more offices once every rep is in the game, but I'd consider adding a few pffices already.

[themiddlepolitical]

I surely want it to be ai focused (speed for example) 8 players is good, I don't think the number is too high. I mean in OOTP baseball for example, you control that many players if not more.