Multiplayer Idea: Sharing a nation

[North_Wolf]

After watching a documentary on a german confrence involving most branches of the german government in WWII I realized just how fractured and competing the diffrent levels of government where.

There is also a great thread on the AI being on par with historical generals when it makes decisions that dont seem to make alot of big picture sense like a tiny unsuported invasion (Dieppe). The AI is basicly operating as several diffrent people with diffrent priorities while the player tends to think of the big picture with everything.

The combination of those two things got me thinking how much fun it would be to play with freinds as diffrent parts of a nation.

Already the game allows you to assign AI command to just about anything so I wonder if it would be hard to allow player assigned roles rather then AI.

The idea would be to play in a group but with players having different roles and being able to argue with one another about what the priorities should be and where resources should go.

Using Germany as an example then whoever was in charge of the invasion of Poland would be trying to make his case to the production and tech people that he needs x amount of things to meet the deadline for the invasion set by whoever is in charge of diplomacy (while the general in charge of holding the french border would also be demanding things and so would the airforce and naval guy). Once the game got to 1941 the pull off diffrent priorities would be even stronger (Barbarossa, Sea Lion, Africa, etc.).

This would be alot more dysfunctional but also alot closer to history and perfect for a LAN game or a dedicated group over the net.

 

[zombie]

I believe nations can already be shared.

 

[Easy1]

Definitely could in HOI2

 

[unmerged(157847)]

From the games I have played in multiplayer, the co-op mode can operate with 2-3 people playing a major country. Much depends on the game situation (pre-war, war with a minor, one-front war, multi-front war, etc.) and can change from session to session (not the least of which because not everyone can always show up for every session). Often the division of labor goes by front/theatre, or one will handle the army with another handling the air. But as you say, the fun/challenge of this is to coordinate things not only internally to your country, but also with the other countries of your faction. Changes in strategies and changes-of-plans are the norm.

I should add though that my experience thus far is that one player is usually the 'primary' and sets the general strategy (e.g. research and production priorities) with others playing a secondary/supporting role. That also depends on the players/personalities, how people work together, etc.

 

[JASGripen]

I have played MP games when one player have front/s , Int and prod tab, the other got dip and tech tab in additon to fronts.

It is fun, you get untis you didn't ask for on one side an can not build what you want on the other side. This happens even with communication.

 

[podcat]

haha, yeah this already works and is a good way of managing large nations in MP games. so you can have 2 ppl playing germany, 2 ppl playing US etc. it usually helps if you agree on responsibilities before hand, like: Lisa handles all of the eastern front and Hans handles the west front and politics etc