Group game for teaching purposes

[eugentango]

Good evening!
I have a suggestion for the game. I am playing it since 1998 and recently when teaching organizational design, I wanted to let my students play a "firm simulation". OpenTTD could be great - there is a possibility to play against each other, it is economic simulation with several options for a firm's strategy.
Finally, I did not apply the game in my class. The reason was simple and complex at the same time - a firm has a separation of functions and the game is designed for a single player. It could be great to make a group game for academic and teaching purposes.

I see three ways of making it (just a suggestion, other ideas are welcome).
1. The easiest way is to make a separation in two or more screens. One of the players makes only construction (production function and all messages and maps appear on separate screens which are seen by other students. E.g. news by marketing function, monthly reports by planning and controlling function, and so on. Communication happens offline, whereby the CEO collect hand written reports from all and produces instructions for the production. Players should not see what is happening on the other screen.
2. A more complex way would be playing not with one account for the firm but with several. Some accounts should have disabled functions, e.g. production can produce, whereas marketing can see the screen and click on towns and reports, but nothing more. We would need, however, an internal messenger for communication. But even an external offline information exchange could work.
3. The most complex and sophisticated option should provide an opportunity to decide on students' roles. In my class students have to decide on an optimal structure for their imaginary firm. The structure means the separation of functions (who is responsible for what) and the way of communicating (who is reporting to whom, who is making decisions).
I think that the initial game is too different from what I propose. But I would like to hear comments and ideas. Any other solutions?
Best,
Eugene

[_dp_]

OpenTTD is a joke of economic simulator. Once you learn the game mechanics you can make a lot of money in no time.

[Gwyd]

I think you might already know, but there is LAN multiplayer avaliable for up to 15 companies (I believe) which can be set up rather simply. I think that as far as complex ecenomics, someone has probably made a patch for the game with complex ecenomics.

[Alberth]

I agree with _dp_ that OpenTTD is pretty much useless for your purposes. Yes, it has money, and limited resources, but it's not an economic game, it's a sandbox game with a focus on building and transporting.

From your description, it sounds to me like you don't need trains driving around, You also don't need real-time (not much at least). You do need more information than the game has, and you want to separate the information. All things that the game doesn't have.
I am not sure why you consider OpenTTD as useful.

I would say your requirements would be much better met with a web-based, turn-based economic simulation. Everybody connects to a central web-server and get the information they are allowed to have, and fill in forms with decisions. Then the central server advances the economic model, perhaps with some random variations, or with a pre-programmed profile, and you get a new round, say once a day or once a week.
Such a program can be created using a simple webserver like bottle (you don't need much performance, there is only a handful of users), and a bunch of Python code. Biggest areas are the economic simulation model and a lot of forms. Likely you also need a database, although I usually prefer to store information in text files, but ti depends on the size of things and how paranoid you are in getting such files in the wrong hands .

[eugentango]

I agree with all of you - OpenTTD is pretty simple and not a real economic simulator. It was very fitting my course, nevertheless.
I wanted to show students how some aspects of strategy work:
For example:
1. That strategy is not rigid and has to be changed due to competitors' moves.
My plan was to firstly show the map with firm's and the landscape. Students had to develop a strategy before they start playing. For example: "our strategy is to connect oil refineries using trains". When the game starts, firm's face strategies of other firms. As one of you said - it is easy to earn money there. What if all decide for the same strategy? Will, it still be easy?
2. I need a team game. Yes, one player can easily win and vastly react. Now imagine that you can build (the main task of the game) only after you receive an order from another (sitting in anoher room) team member. Information asymmetry, as well as complexity of decision making Will make this easy game to a pain in the neck of the train line builder.
3. At the moment I have several goals which are not directly connected with the existing game mechanisms.
3.1. I want to show that the strategy holds only until competitors are in play. Even if for strategy is unique (till all other players fight for our refinery, you earn less money by transporting woods. But less without competitors can be more at the end), others will copy it.
3.2. I want to show how important it is to establish communication between firm's functions. I assume that most of the students decide on hierarchical structure. They decide before they know that they will play the game. When playing they will notice that all team members sitting in one room (flat structures) act faster and more efficient than hierarchies. This works however only for small teams. A sitting in one room team of hundred students would be a catastrophe.
3.3. Money is a benchmark. My plan was (and still is) to make most of the game offline. 1. Planning, strategy development, structuring happens offline. 2. Game, using LAN. Actually I would need about 3-5 players, the rest of possible players could be used for CEOs- just observe and see news. 3. Discussion pf results in the class. What worked? who won? why? what was the core competence of the team? Of course, the team that earned more money receives some course credits.

As you can see, although I agree with all of you, I still see a potential for teaching.

At the moment I did not use the game for the following reasons:
- hard to show a screenshot of the map. It is too either too small or too big. You cannot zoom in the map window in the game, do you?
- university allows us to play only in intranet using LAN switch. It makes the role separation hard. Practically all production units of all firms have to sit in one room.
- it is hard to control for communication issues. If a production decides to play on his or her own, the firm will win due to fast decisions but the main idea of the teaching gets lost.
- time limits. I have the last lesson of the course (1,5 hours) which I can use for this game. Installing, role separation, map analysis, room organisation might need more time. It would be great to have some of the steps realized in the group TTD. At the moment, they work only manually.

Best,
Eugene

[Alberth]

Oh, right, you want to show that strategy includes flexibility. That could work. I don't think it's anything specific to economics, though.

hard to show a screenshot of the map.

We have something called "giant screenshot", which basically makes a screenshot of the entire world as you see it in the main window. Yes, it's going to be huge, but find a graphics editor that can handle such images, and scale it down to whatever size you want.
I don't think you should use a big world; the idea is that they fight for resources, so make the map small, with few industries. You probably should explain the game mechanics to the students, or how the industries are connected at least, for those that do not know the game.
[Add it as "obligatory knowledge" in the course, clearly no student should graduate without knowing this great game ]

university allows us to play only in intranet using LAN switch

Can't you distribute savegames? People can cheat into other companies though, and know the finances etc of other companies. Not really a problem if you distribute that information anyway. Otherwise, everybody can see what's on the world, and who owns which tracks etc, not many secrets there.

it is hard to control for communication issues.

Did you consider "build while paused?" Run a MP game, and pause the server. Everybody is stopped in time. Then, let people build for eg 15 minutes. It has some problems, since trains can't be moved out of the way, or selling them is tricky. There are dropdowns to send all vehicles to a depot etc, which may resolve some of the issues.
Maybe some hybrid form 5 minutes build, 1 minute run, say 4 times or so.

If there are written instructions what may be done, make them detailed enough so a competitor can verify if it is done correctly. You can distribute such instructions to everybody.

time limits

Not sure how much this is a problem of the OpenTTD game. I'd say you have this problem in any way you want to let the students get this experience, even without game, doing all the communication takes a lot of time. Hard and short deadlines are probably partly an answer; adding a little stress and making rash decisions without properly thinking it through do spice it up

[Amak]

- hard to show a screenshot of the map. It is too either too small or too big. You cannot zoom in the map window in the game, do you?

I use JGR PatchPack, I can zoom out to my liking. After a certain zoom it switches to something that looks like the pop up map.. but the whole window.

[Drury]

Offworld Trading Company sounds perfect for your purposes. Competitive economic RTS, designed for up to 8 players. The core mechanic is the free market and exploiting it to turn profit and buy out your opponents. Players can form teams before the game starts, and each individual player can set out to exploit a different niche of the market to help the team's effort. Rounds take between 30 minutes to an hour so you can easily fit that into a lesson including the planning stage. Speaking of which, the planning stage is an actual part of the game, you start each round on a randomly generated map and everybody's just sorta trying to figure out the best strategy for the map during the first couple of minutes. It's also easy to get all of the important information from a single screenshot, the HUD shows the composition of resources on the map and the game view shows the colony, which has its own specific needs.

Here's what a game of OTC looks like, or rather how it looked like in the early 2015 build. It's somewhat neater now but the game works more or less the same:



It works both over internet and LAN so no problem there.

The only downside is that licenses are a bit pricey, if you contact Stardock and mention it's for education purposes they'll probably see what can be done about getting you free copies. The much older game called "MULE" that it's based on has a free remake out on the net, also something to check out.

[eugentango]

Morning, Alberth!

Thank you for insightful comments!
1. Map zooming - I see there are solutions. great!
2. LAN and distribution of the saved file: I did not really get it. I thought, when I start a server from my PC, the other simply play on the map saved on my PC. Or is it simultaneously saved on all local PCs? I don't think the students will cheat. I can also observe their behaviour. It is actually my role in this game - to see how "the firms" are organised.
3. Build while paused: How is it working? I am curious what is going to happen if during the pause two players build a railway station at the same location? And yes, I can ask students to bring all vehicles into depots 1 minute before game set end.

Time limits, as well as effort limits, are an issue. I had a talk with my co-organizer of the course in the next semester - he doesn't like the idea of too much of "manual steering" since it is effortful and hardly controllable. We'll try it out and I'll let you know whether it was ok.

I still think a new "group" version of the game would be an asset. And if the developers can add additional mechanisms for teachers - it would be a real treasure! For economists is important to show how price changes or external events influence the market. I know it is pretty far from what we have (and love) in OpenTTD at the moment, but we need a new development. Academia - is a good way to go. Moreover, it is a perfect advertisement or the game.

Best,
Eugene

[eugentango]

Offworld Trading Company sounds perfect for your purposes. Competitive economic RTS, designed for up to 8 players. The core mechanic is the free market and exploiting it to turn profit and buy out your opponents. Players can form teams before the game starts, and each individual player can set out to exploit a different niche of the market to help the team's effort. Rounds take between 30 minutes to an hour so you can easily fit that into a lesson including the planning stage. Speaking of which, the planning stage is an actual part of the game, you start each round on a randomly generated map and everybody's just sorta trying to figure out the best strategy for the map during the first couple of minutes. It's also easy to get all of the important information from a single screenshot, the HUD shows the composition of resources on the map and the game view shows the colony, which has its own specific needs.

Here's what a game of OTC looks like, or rather how it looked like in the early 2015 build. It's somewhat neater now but the game works more or less the same:



It works both over internet and LAN so no problem there.

The only downside is that licenses are a bit pricey, if you contact Stardock and mention it's for education purposes they'll probably see what can be done about getting you free copies. The much older game called "MULE" that it's based on has a free remake out on the net, also something to check out.

Thank you for a great idea! I'll try to check out whether we can apply it. I see at the moment two main weaknesses:
1. It looks as a sci-fi game, whereas OpenTTD looks like a real world representation.
2. If I am correct (still watching video), the group shares not different functions but different resources. For me, it would be interesting if the players from one team divide functions among them (e.g. Marketing, Production, Finances). If I am correct, in this particular game, each player carries all functions on his own, apart from the corporate control which works through interplayer communication. Correct?

But I'll have a look - it may ft to my other lecture on resource-based view and competition. Thank you for this great idea!

Best,
Eugene

[Alberth]

Morning, Alberth!

And a very good UTC good morning to you as well

2. LAN and distribution of the saved file: I did not really get it. I thought, when I start a server from my PC, the other simply play on the map saved on my PC. Or is it simultaneously saved on all local PCs? I don't think the students will cheat. I can also observe their behaviour. It is actually my role in this game - to see how "the firms" are organised.

You had distribution problems of knowledge, which seemed to me, could perhaps be solved by distribution of save game copies. It does have a few disadvantages as I mentioned.

3. Build while paused: How is it working? I am curious what is going to happen if during the pause two players build a railway station at the same location?

I never tried construction while paused in a MP (multi-player) game, but as SP (single player) I use it a lot, as my games last longer then. You build just like normal, except time has stopped; vehicles are not moving and minor issues lilke sea is not claiming tiles that you give to it, but otherwise it works like normal (in the settings window, search for "paused" will probably give you the relevant setting). You should check if you can this in MP, as I never tried that, but I expect no problem, or at least I wouldn't know why that would not work.

I still think a new "group" version of the game would be an asset.

It would? OpenTTD is dominantly a single-player game. Have a look at the public server page, we normally have more servers than multi-players online. Likely some people play on private LANs, but Idon't think it's anywhere near significant.

There has been some interest in setting up sub-companies, so you can administratively separate different parts of the company, I think mainly in an effort to simulate real-world practice. There also exists the desire to have co-operating companies, for infra-structure sharing, which exists as patch currently.
I don't think that "group" as a set of people wit distinctive view and decision options would ever work in a normal game, where the main aim is to just have fun playing and building. As such it doesn't exist at all currently. Every player is the same, with some minor differences on the server owner, but that's it. I am not sure that having and enforcing such roles would even get accepted as change, since it's very much against the idea of a free and open sandbox game.

The alternative is to fork, of course, and then it's all your game.

And if the developers can add additional mechanisms for teachers

It's free to dream, but reality says it's not going to happen, unless you do it. At least, I don't see any other developer here, and I have sufficient other things to do.

For economists is important to show how price changes or external events influence the market.

There is no market in OpenTTD, you get paid for transporting cargo, and that's it. Companies don't buy the cargo, they get paid for transport only.

I believe that if we would remove money from the game, many people wouldn't even mind. It's a limit in the first few years, after that you earn more than you can spend in the same amount of time, so money is mostly totally irrelevant.

[Drury]

Thank you for a great idea! I'll try to check out whether we can apply it. I see at the moment two main weaknesses:
1. It looks as a sci-fi game, whereas OpenTTD looks like a real world representation.
2. If I am correct (still watching video), the group shares not different functions but different resources. For me, it would be interesting if the players from one team divide functions among them (e.g. Marketing, Production, Finances). If I am correct, in this particular game, each player carries all functions on his own, apart from the corporate control which works through interplayer communication. Correct?

But I'll have a look - it may ft to my other lecture on resource-based view and competition. Thank you for this great idea!

Best,
Eugene

Both correct. The game is sci-fi, however as far sci-fi goes it's a bit on the realistic side. You don't have anything like kryptonite or tiberium in it, just your basic carbon, oxygen, water etc. It's very similar in theme to the original Transport Tycoon's Mars landscape, if you remember that.

And yes, each player in a team is capable of running their company on their own, and as far as gameplay goes marketing is automated by the game's systems, the player's task is merely to set up the infrastructure and buy and sell resources as the commodity prices fluctuate. Mind, a "company" in the context of the game is a very specialized unit, and one player can't run multiple companies.

As for how specialized a company is - each player only has a limited amount of land claims available to them, meaning they can only set up so much infrastructure, meaning they have to pick and choose which resources they want to exploit and which are best left untapped. To help this goal more, players have 4 different HQ types to choose from at the start of the game, each with different needs and strengths. The Robotic HQ for instance doesn't consume any life support resources or fuel, but in turn powers its ships off the power grid and requires a more expensive secondary commodity to expand and gain more land claims (electronics instead of glass), meaning if they have a teammate capable of supplying them with electronics and power very early on, like for instance the Scientific HQ can, they can expand very quickly and monopolize many resources, which is great for profits.