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anarchy: the game


Phillip Brix

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the civ 5 topic got me thinking, how would one design a game around the priciples of anarchy?

first: you would need no violence. so, can't capture pieces; no army.

second: voluntary exchange. so players can trade any item they possess.

third: property rights. players should be able to own land, and improve it.

fourth: mutable rules. besides the above rules always in enforcement, any other rule the players create is subject to negotiation.

 

any other things the game would need?

 

 

 

 

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Monopoly already comes pretty close to your needs. You could start with that, and tweak it a little.

 

Revamp the "Chance" and "Community Chest" cards to replace the cards that deal with taxation etc. Require some type of productive activity instead of collecting $200 merely "for passing GO". Allow free-market actions to break monopolies. For example, if someone has all of the railroads, another player could convert one of his properties into another railroad. Property improvements wouldn't be limited to building houses and hotels; other types of productive investment would be allowed. You could spend your funds to boost your education, for example.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello.

I am an indie game developer. really i just learned C++ and am looking at making a small game using unity game engine that doesn't take to long to make for 1 guy. I love monopoly, even though the creator made the game to be an anti capitalist game. I am going to play around with these ideals. I will post an alpha version of the game when I have something playable. 

 

I am working on the ideals and features now. I highly encourage feedback. I will also post a planned feature list when I have one. 

 

For now the ideal is there is a randomly generated map that simulates a world in development that is progressing and consuming, the players must see the world and extrapolate what is profitable to build or invest in. The world should react in ways that make economic sense so that if the population of the world increases so does the demand for things like schools, food, healthcare, roads/alternatives. The key to success is the balance between cooperation and competition, I would Imagine this world to be a newly stateless society, so that at the beginning of the game the world has a terrible economy from imbalances from its old oppressive government, So now with this player involved and a free-market you can help/influence the market to grow and prosper while realizing that controlling the whole dam thing and gaining a monopoly is virtually impossible. 

 

I would love to put a lot of work into this game, its creation is really an embodiment of everything that is going on in my head atm like AI programming, game development, anarchy, and wanting to produce a game that is saying something while being fun and also anyone would enjoy, even a statist.

 

I look forward to your feedback. 

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I love monopoly, even though the creator made the game to be an anti capitalist game.

 

Monopoly is great! I've been playing it a lot recently with my teenage kids. Playing it as a quick-moving 45-minute game has made all the difference, compared to how I played it as a child (taking the whole afternoon until all the players except one are bankrupt).

 

How about a game that works broadly along the same lines as monopoly, but where each player takes a different role (investor, speculator, politician, banker, bureaucrat, shopkeeper etc) and the incentives and rewards are different for each role?

 

The key to success is the balance between cooperation and competition,

 

A "balance" implies that it's en "either-or" situation. Why not make the key to success be the fact that individual competition happens to be the best possible form of social cooperation?

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coopetition may have been better but the balance I was speaking of is the player must help and work with more people than people who he competes against.

 

example being if you chose to be a gold miner then you need to co-operate with people who make mining equipment, the people who transport your goods and then you have to ensure that the roads/railroads and infrastructure is in place so that you can maximize your competition with the other mining company's. This will be very important feature wise.

 

The game will also be completely NAP approved game, so no politicians or government, however there will be a large list of professions you can chose from

 

Note there will be different game modes, so that there are faster play throughs as I suspect a free for all game would take dozens of hours to complete. where as if there is a game mode to see who has the most combined money at the end of a game session then we can have 45min play times.

 

 

 

the intended features list will be done with in the week and hopefully the first screen shots/video. I am working of the procedural generated map at the moment, everything I post will be place holder unless said otherwise.

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coopetition may have been better but the balance I was speaking of is the player must help and work with more people than people who he competes against.

 

example being if you chose to be a gold miner then you need to co-operate with people who make mining equipment, the people who transport your goods and then you have to ensure that the roads/railroads and infrastructure is in place so that you can maximize your competition with the other mining company's. This will be very important feature wise.

 

The game will also be completely NAP approved game, so no politicians or government, however there will be a large list of professions you can chose from

 

Note there will be different game modes, so that there are faster play throughs as I suspect a free for all game would take dozens of hours to complete. where as if there is a game mode to see who has the most combined money at the end of a game session then we can have 45min play times.

 

 

 

the intended features list will be done with in the week and hopefully the first screen shots/video. I am working of the procedural generated map at the moment, everything I post will be place holder unless said otherwise.

This is a very cool idea.

 

I am like a broken record on this forum promoting this book. But I think you should really read it and have it inform your work. It is remarkably relevant to what you're doing and even talks about games (like the Prisoner's Dilemma) and the math behind what is necessary for cooperation to win out over competition.

 

The Evolution of Cooperation

 

"Widely praised and much-discussed, this classic book explores how cooperation can emerge in a world of self-seeking egoists-whether superpowers, businesses, or individuals-when there is no central authority to police their actions."

 

It might really spur your thinking about the kinds of incentives that should be built into the game.

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I have a ton of books on my list right now, but I may eventually get around to it. Right now my main focus is to try and get this procedural map working, I have a few ways I can do it I'm just not sure at which way for the long run will work best. I really don't want to have to rewrite this darn thing later on but that might not be an option for me now, seeing that my experience with such a thing is pretty low. Maybe trying many things and seeing how far they get me is the best way.

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