Problem: Designing a game about negotiating a Peace Treaty. As part of an educational project, this game is more of an in-class-discussion driven activity. The computer game portion should be a sort of "enter the results of the discussion and see what happens." Its about a conflict between a certain group of Native Americans and a certain state in the US, involving land rights. It takes place during the late 1700''s and the objective is to negotiate a peace treaty between the Native American group and the US. There are many sides to this conflict: The US State involved wants more land The Native American group is divided: - Some want to be fairly compensated for the land - Some want to form an alliance with the US - Many want to keep all their land, and trade with Spain Spain controls nearby territory in North America at this time and wants to continue to trade with the Native American group, and nurture conflict in the region to promote instability there The US wants to end conflict in the region and push Spain out of the equation This isn''t actually my project, it belongs to another developer, and the 2D game-board style engine is actually being developed currently. The virtual "gameboard" itself is part of what I''m trying to help him design. Ideas that have been discussed include trading peace treaty tokens (one token representing a Land agreement, one a monetary agreement, etc), trading of actual land and resources, points for successful negotations, and so on. However we haven''t found a way to present any real reward or challenge to the player so far. I know its a tricky one, thats why I''m coming to you all for help. Any ideas? **************************************** Brian Lacy ForeverDream Studios Comments? Questions? Curious? brian@foreverdreamstudios.com "I create. Therefore I am."

Take a look at the board game diplomacy.

Diplomacy This is just one page.

It is totally different than your project but the same princpals could be applied with a little imagination. The name of the game is diplomacy after all.

Trouble is, most games are about winning , whereas negotiating a treaty is about compromise. With only two players, (Native American & Settlers) its difficult to imagine that there''ll ever be a winner, unless one player is really stupid.

However ... If you divide the Native americans up into different groups, played by different people, then you might have a game on your hands.

First of all, I think combat needs to be simulated at some level - there needs to be something going on if discussions break down. I''d suggest a simple system like this:

The board (map) is divided up into territories. Some territories are designated as belonging to the Settlers (played by one player), others are designated as belonging to different native american tribes (each tribe played by one player)

Combat takes place between military unit tokens and might be similar to that used in Diplomacy or Risk. One difference would be that Native American tribes should get a reasonable advantage when fighting within their own territory, representing their superior knowledge of the land.

In addition to the military units, there are other resources on the map, some of which are mobile. For example, buffalo might be an important resource - and they might move randomly around the map or follow predefined migration routes. The Native Americans can turn buffalo into food (which in turn provides for more military units) and trade goods (buffalo skins) which can be exchanged for money. The US player does not particularly care about using buffalo for food (he has domesticated animals and farms for that) but he can still convert the buffalo into trade goods and get money for them.

Native americans gain units by trading in food counters (gained from buffalo or whatever). The US player gains units by spending money, which is obtained from trade or levied from controlled resources/territories.

Somewhere in all this, you might also want a Spanish player. It might be quite fun to set him up as a purely diplomatic player - He does not have any units at all, but gains money every time the US loses a territory. He''s working to try and screw the US over and make as much cash as he can, even though he has no direct influence over the area.

Critical_Waste, thank you, that was some great reading!

quote: Original post by Diodor
Critical_Waste, thank you, that was some great reading!

I aim to please? Hehe, google for more Diplomacy. It is actually a hugely popular game...

Enjoy.

Wow, have a look at diplomacy-archive.com ! This article made me plainly envious! Diplomacy apparently solved the old quest on this forum for a political game.

[edited by - Diodor on June 13, 2003 4:18:36 PM]