Re: Thoughts on Alterra?

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

> Has anyone had the time or interest to take a look at Alterra, my economic
> simulation?  It's at <http://cvs.seul.org/~dloss/alterra.html>.  I'd like
> some feedback on whether any of you think it's feasible and worthwhile to
> develop it into a network-based simulation for use either in a classroom
> environment or recreationally.  Let me know what you think.
 
I took a look at it. It looks relatively complex...in my experience,
balancing complexity like that (so the game is fair and fun) is difficult.

Have you looked at already-implemented alternatives, such as Empire?

I don't have any good links for Empire anymore (it's been 3-4 years since
I've looked at it, and their main site at empire.net/~children/ appears to
have disappeared), but they've got several implementations of the server,
and several different implementations of clients in many different
languages. It's a strategy-war-economics-diplomacy game played over
tcp/ip. Might fit your bill nicely..

--Roger