Spirit of the Games: An Olympics Text-Sim Programming Dynasty

[Izulde]

All right, so I know I have that other real life dynasty that I should put this in, but upon further reflection, I've decided it would be best to diverge each idea into its own dynasty-stream, so that those with predilictions for just one or two of the items may focus on reading about them and say to hell with the rest of it.

Spirit of the Games is an idea I've carried around in my head for several years now, but it wasn't until about a year ago that I began to realize that I had the potential to carry it through and make a success of it.

Thus, work began on the idea stage, that bubbly and iridescent period of dreaming, where everything seems possible and the ugly reality of one's own programming limitations seems but an abberation, a nightmare had after an evening of excess paid for the coin of tortured slumber.

I quickly realized that considerable work was ahead of me and originally I started by writing a list of countries and medal histories, thinking I could start getting a baseline from that.

Then I came to the inevitable conclusion that a simple litany of medals would service me little good and was more work than it was worth.

So I left off that task and started writing down a list of the events from past and present in both Summer and Winter Olympics. This, I feel, will give me a better grasp of things.

As I noted in one of the General Discussion threads, the main thrust of this game will be management of a country's Olympic program. As the autocratic head, it will be up to you to decide what sports to seek out talent in and to promote with training, funding, and top coaching.

The expectations that you will be required to fulfill depend on the country you've taken. I do not intend this to be a static list of goals that is entirely dependant on size, but rather one that varies, depending on the history of the country, both in the backstory real world and in the created game universe itself.

Hence, a small country with no record of Olympic success to speak of might only wish you to get the funding and the like to send a contigent of a few athletes or the government might want a medal, any medal. On the other end, a rich and traditionally powerful country might demand records, or the top medals count when all is said and done, etc.

Or, if a country has a historical tradition of dominating a sport, even if it is buried in the distant sands of time, the government could set as one of the benchmarks of success to re-establish dominance in said sport.

As you can see, some of this is quite vague, other of it much more concrete.

I think the first order of business now is to start delving deeper into the history of the sports and countries involved and their glory periods.

If any of you out there have any suggestions or advice as to where to garner this information, or if there is an Olympic sport that is a particular passion of yours, perhaps you might want to provide some information on its history, periods of dominance by specific countries, etc.

My feeling is that by appealing for information from those who are fanatic about a sport, I can provide a more accurate framework for the countries in the game in a faster period of time than I could do entirely on my own.

Anyway, that's a basic introduction. More details will come as I progress at whatever pace I happen to set.