Let's Play: Space Empires IV multiplayer take 2 (in progress) [Archive]

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Douglas

2010-03-01, 02:34 PM

The first attempt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122586) at this has been declared essentially a practice run, it seems, so it's time to start up a second attempt.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of specific game settings and voting, I think we should discuss what kind of game this should be. Towards the end of the first game, I saw some comments about not enough conflict, possibly adding AI players, and someone mentioned a mercenary style empire. A mercenary force that gets its resources primarily by selling the service of its military is not really a viable empire paradigm in stock, but there are mods that allow such things.

So, some possibilities:
1) We could, of course, do "just like last time but now we're better", playing essentially the same thing but with some valuable lessons from the first time improving everyone's gameplay.
2) We could try a mod. There's Pirates & Nomads, Adamant Mod, Carrier Battles, Proportions Mod (be prepared for a Very Long game with this one), Junkyard Wars, and quite a few more (http://spaceempires.net/downloads-cat-6.html).
3) We could add some AI players, neutral or otherwise. The AI is pretty stupid, though, and neutral races are literally incapable of using warp points.
4) I'd prefer to play myself, but I could act as a DM of sorts. I'd periodically log in to each player's empire to check how you're doing and offer advice. I could also play a number of "lesser" races in place of AIs, giving each race a set of behavior guidelines and handicaps (only 1 colony ship every 5 turns, for example).
5) We could eliminate intelligence operations. That whole system is very poorly designed and usually results in either an extra advantage for the leading empire or a useless drain on everyone.
6) We could ban technology trading, colony tech trading, and/or population trading in the name of balance. These are all realistic options, but I'm sure everyone's noticed their potential to bring disproportionate benefits to a lucky few.

Any other suggestions from the players?

New players are welcome, of course, as are all the players of the first game.

Please discuss, leave comments, and provide suggestions as you see fit. If you just want to play and don't care much about the settings, post that too.

Aragehaor

2010-03-01, 02:38 PM

Personally. I like the idea of removing Intelligence operations. But i might be in the minority here.

Will post more later, for now i have work to do.

Ilena

2010-03-01, 02:50 PM

Im good either way, vanilla or mods im ok, the AI players in carrier battles i know are pretty good, but it takes a lot getting used to. I would definately prefer to have no intellegence though, i never play with it and dont like it much, and i think it definately gives the bigger guy a bigger advantage, myself i have already decided what my style of race is going to be, none of this allie with everyone let them colonize inside my galaxy stuff! But ya, thats my opinion, ill play whatever everyone wants to play, be it 4 or 5, and mod or not,

Douglas

2010-03-01, 02:53 PM

Oh yeah, if you want me as host it will have to be SE4. I might get SE5 eventually, but not now.

Ilena

2010-03-01, 02:55 PM

well i want you as a host :P and if we are voting on that i want SE4 then :P

Astrella

2010-03-01, 03:00 PM

Ilena

2010-03-01, 03:04 PM

im ok with doing reports, just kinda hard when im missing over 20 of them :P and ya i forgot about colony trading, id rather not trade tech at all honestly, but colony tech and expecially pop i dont want to be traded,

Aragehaor

2010-03-01, 04:35 PM

I'm in again.
I'd definitely ban ways of getting access to other colonisation technologies early on. (Those would be colony tech trading and population trading right?)
Intelligence is also a mechanic I don't like much, so I wouldn't mourn it if we didn't use it...
I don't have any problems with mods.

Are we going to do turn reports again? Since that went down pretty quickly last time. Maybe rather have some global news thing or something similar for the fluff part?

Amusingly, Both you and Crixon traded colonisation tech with each other and me. :smalltongue:

We could use mods. It doesnt really matter to me.

If douglas is playing. im all for banning Tech trading. (if only to delay his slaughter of us all.)

Personally. Turn reports are fine to me. its just that its not likely that mine will be done quickly.

Smight

2010-03-01, 04:53 PM

im all for banning Tech trading. (if only to delay his slaughter of us all.)

or quicken it, no trading will hurt smaler empires more than large one.

Ilena

2010-03-01, 04:55 PM

lol i didnt trade, the one before my leadership did, i for one would never had allowed others to colonize my precious space :D

AgentPaper

2010-03-01, 04:59 PM

Oh yeah, if you want me as host it will have to be SE4. I might get SE5 eventually, but not now.

Well, that's a good enough reason to play SEIV for me. :smalltongue:

Anyways, yes on AI, yes on Mods, (especially to improve AI) and if you're willing, you DMing sounds pretty nice as well. If you are, we might not even need any AI at all, though it might be a good idea if only so that we can have more "NPC" factions without requiring you to be controlling ten different empires at once. Which is a fate I would not wish to see imposed upon anyone, no matter the crime. :smallamused:

Turn reports I'd be OK with, though a more centralized "yearly news report" type of deal might be more practical. Then just require each person to write notes each turn to give to whoever is going to write that. At the very least, though, we should have turn notes, if not reports. Just something like:

-Began construction of a colony ship on Terra.
-System Kubak discovered, 12 planets, 3 of which are colonizable.
-Began Research of Energy Stream Weapons VI.

for the early turns, and then more like:

-Lost 12 ships in conflict with Xur'ar in Kubak system
-Planet Terra is in revolt
-Finished construction of 37 Obliterator-class Dreadnoughts.

for the later turns.

Douglas

2010-03-01, 05:23 PM

or quicken it, no trading will hurt smaler empires more than large one.
It really just favors whoever does it the most. If there are four players, A, B, C, and D, and there are constantly trades going on between A and B, A and C, and A and D, then player A is going to leapfrog ahead of everyone very quickly - and if A keeps quiet about it and B, C, and D don't talk with each other much, no one but A will know.

This actually wasn't all that relevant to what happened last game, though, because my extremely dominant position came more from out-expanding everyone than from trading technologies. I did trade for all colonization techs, and I regularly traded technology on an equal-cost basis with the Federation, but most of my tech lead was just I Had That Much Research.

Now, I had acquired all 5 breather types through trade, which I doubt anyone else had accomplished, and that certainly gave me a major boost, but the transports spreading them through my empire had only finished about half of the job and even the planets that had been undomed still had a lot of building to do.

Ok, so far we've got a few people saying disable intelligence and no one opposing that, two requests to ban tech trading with one person not so sure, and a lot of ambivalence about mods.

Anyways, yes on AI, yes on Mods, (especially to improve AI) and if you're willing, you DMing sounds pretty nice as well. If you are, we might not even need any AI at all, though it might be a good idea if only so that we can have more "NPC" factions without requiring you to be controlling ten different empires at once. Which is a fate I would not wish to see imposed upon anyone, no matter the crime. :smallamused:
They'd be rather small empires compared to normal, and my turn routine is pretty fast...

Turn reports I'd be OK with, though a more centralized "yearly news report" type of deal might be more practical. Then just require each person to write notes each turn to give to whoever is going to write that. At the very least, though, we should have turn notes, if not reports. Just something like:

-Began construction of a colony ship on Terra.
-System Kubak discovered, 12 planets, 3 of which are colonizable.
-Began Research of Energy Stream Weapons VI.

for the early turns, and then more like:

-Lost 12 ships in conflict with Xur'ar in Kubak system
-Planet Terra is in revolt
-Finished construction of 37 Obliterator-class Dreadnoughts.

for the later turns.
That resembles my actual turn notes very strongly.

Aragehaor

2010-03-01, 05:37 PM

Ok, so far we've got a few people saying disable intelligence and no one opposing that, two requests to ban tech trading with one person not so sure, and a lot of ambivalence about mods.
The irony being that The no tech trading(that i voted for.) will probably ruin me.

They'd be rather small empires compared to normal, and my turn routine is pretty fast...

Last game your empire may or may not of been small. it was, however more powerful then everyone else combined, i believe Agentpaper was worried that instead of one god-race we would have Ten
(Instead of. Say. worrying that the multiple empires would be too much for you. :smalltongue:)

That resembles my actual turn notes very strongly.

My turn notes were a chaotic thing. varying from trying to write a small sample of what i would actually put into the turn reports to just the bare dull details and everything in-between. (whatever that may be)

Douglas

2010-03-01, 06:17 PM

Is anyone who did not play in the first game interested in joining this one?

Last game your empire may or may not of been small. it was, however more powerful then everyone else combined, i believe Agentpaper was worried that instead of one god-race we would have Ten
(Instead of. Say. worrying that the multiple empires would be too much for you. :smalltongue:)
My empire was pretty big. My empire was powerful specifically because it was large and well developed. Empire size is a very strong indicator and prerequisite of empire power in this game.

I'll wait at least a day, maybe more, for more suggestions, comments, and debate before putting forth my proposal for a new game.

Aragehaor

2010-03-01, 06:29 PM

Is anyone who did not play in the first game interested in joining this one?

My empire was pretty big. My empire was powerful specifically because it was large and well developed. Empire size is a very strong indicator and prerequisite of empire power in this game.

I'll wait at least a day, maybe more, for more suggestions, comments, and debate before putting forth my proposal for a new game.

(Aragehaor Thought his empire. Juh- Crixon's and Sirro's Was pretty large)

Astrella

2010-03-01, 06:46 PM

I'd allow tech trading though, then people who would want so could play a civilization focussed on research and thriving by trading said research with other players.

Cobalt

2010-03-01, 06:48 PM

Is anyone who did not play in the first game interested in joining this one?

I am, but as I lack most basic computer interface skills I'd likely come crying for help with basic things like downloading mods. In fact, I'm sure of it, which could lead to me being a great annoyance to others. But this doesn't turn me off of mod usage, and if others are for it then yeah, I'll go along with them.

And I agree with ridding the game of intelligence projects, too. Tech trading, I could care less.

Astrella

2010-03-01, 06:55 PM

What is the player limit you'd like to impose, Douglas? And time per turns? Would be nice I guess if we could maintain the tempo from the start of the previous game.

Douglas

2010-03-01, 07:09 PM

(Aragehaor Thought his empire. Juh- Crixon's and Sirro's Was pretty large)
Hold on while I reset your empire passwords to check...

Eee: 41 colonies spread over 20 systems, 28 of which are breathable.
Nyx: 24 colonies spread over 11 systems, 14 of which are breathable. Of those 14 breathables, exactly 4 - including the homeworld - were completely full of facilities.
Xurians: 20 colonies spread over 10 systems, 15 of which are breathable.

The Eee and Xurians suffered a lot from overly generalized planets and building resource producing facilities on planets not suited for them. The Xurians also had one spaceport per planet instead of one per system. The Nyx had way too many resource storage facilities and a lot of planets not fully developed.

Contrast that with this:
Derajil: 140 colonies spread over 15 systems, 44 of which are breathable by my own race.

In my empire, each planet produced one thing. Period. 110% or higher minerals value, it's a mining planet. 130% or higher organics or radioactives value, it's a farming or refining planet. If it's above multiple thresholds, it depends on what I need and how far above each threshold it is, and I might consider splitting production between the high value resources. Below all three thresholds, and it's a research or intelligence planet depending on which system it's in. I had three systems that produced a lot of intel and no research, while every other system produced a lot of research and no intel. I had exactly two resource storage facilities in my entire empire, both for minerals. Every last planet I had was either at its maximum number of facilities or building more facilities as fast as it could go.

The above facts are by far the most important reasons my empire was so much more powerful than the rest of you.

I am, but as I lack most basic computer interface skills I'd likely come crying for help with basic things like downloading mods. In fact, I'm sure of it, which could lead to me being a great annoyance to others. But this doesn't turn me off of mod usage, and if others are for it then yeah, I'll go along with them.

And I agree with ridding the game of intelligence projects, too. Tech trading, I could care less.
Welcome aboard, Cobalt. I'll be happy to guide you through the first few turns to help you learn the game. If everyone from the first game comes back for this one, that makes 9 players.

What is the player limit you'd like to impose, Douglas? And time per turns? Would be nice I guess if we could maintain the tempo from the start of the previous game.
As many as want to play, subject to the game's hardcoded maximum of 20.

I would like 48 hour turns, and I'm tempted to alter my website setup to enforce this. People would be more likely to take the time limit seriously if missing it actually means missing the turn.

Aragehaor

2010-03-01, 07:25 PM

Hold on while I reset your empire passwords to check...

Eee: 41 colonies spread over 20 systems, 28 of which are breathable.
Nyx: 24 colonies spread over 11 systems, 14 of which are breathable. Of those 14 breathables, exactly 4 - including the homeworld - were completely full of facilities.
Xurians: 20 colonies spread over 10 systems, 15 of which are breathable.

The Eee and Xurians suffered a lot from overly generalized planets and building resource producing facilities on planets not suited for them. The Xurians also had one spaceport per planet instead of one per system. The Nyx had way too many resource storage facilities and a lot of planets not fully developed.
(bold mine.) Eh-heh... This just goes to show My inexperience with the game. :smallredface:

Contrast that with this:
Derajil: 140 colonies spread over 15 systems, 44 of which are breathable by my own race.
... Yeah... i... didnt think you were that big... 140 colonies. 44 of which are breathable....:smalleek: Sheesh.

In my empire, each planet produced one thing. Period. 110% or higher minerals value, it's a mining planet. 130% or higher organics or radioactives value, it's a farming or refining planet. If it's above multiple thresholds, it depends on what I need and how far above each threshold it is, and I might consider splitting production between the high value resources. Below all three thresholds, and it's a research or intelligence planet depending on which system it's in. I had three systems that produced a lot of intel and no research, while every other system produced a lot of research and no intel. I had exactly two resource storage facilities in my entire empire, both for minerals. Every last planet I had was either at its maximum number of facilities or building more facilities as fast as it could go.

The above facts are by far the most important reasons my empire was so much more powerful than the rest of you.

My inexperience with the game shines ever brighter. i remember the days when i thought The Alliance i had with the nyx and Eee would make it so we could beat douglas. I was Vastly mistaken it seems.

Im curious though. How large were the other empires in the game?

AgentPaper

2010-03-01, 08:04 PM

Doug, you think you could do a breakdown like that of my empire? I'd love to see more concretely what I did wrong. Actaully, if you did that for everyone, I think it would go a long way towards making the next game more even in skill level.

Douglas

2010-03-01, 08:14 PM

Rovvari: 63 colonies spread over 8 systems, 23 of which are breathable. 7 additional colonies were made breathable by the acquisition and use of Derajil population. Colony development was actually pretty good overall, both in extent and choices, though it could have been a little better. Oh, and one planet's rioting.
Vasati: 34 colonies spread over 14 systems, 32 of which are breathable. Very good and thorough colony development, and excellent acquisition of breathable planets, but the neglected non-breathables is not good.
Terran Federation: 79 colonies spread over 11 systems, 24 of which are breathable. An additional 12 were made breathable by the acquisition and use of Derajil population. Development of breathable colonies was pretty well done, but non-breathables were mostly relegated to being nothing but space yards, which is a significant waste.
Ophoolo: 26 colonies spread over 18 systems, 23 of which are breathable. Lots of overly generalized resource producing planets, some even with research thrown in too, and way way waaaaaaaay too many resource storage facilities. You do not need 470000 minerals storage capacity and 390000 each for organics and radioactives unless you are doing some truly immense retrofit projects, a LOT of resource conversion, or a LOT of trading of resources.

Hmm, let's see if I can assemble the scores table:
Note: the letters denoting thousands/millions/billions were throwing off the sorting. Score, Resources, Research, and Intel are in thousands. Population is in billions (remember that the basic indivisible unit of population is 1 million).

EmpireScoreResourcesResearchIntelTech levelsSystemsPlanetsPopulationUnitsShipsBasesRank
Derajil38001000754.2197.21601514014.13216317401
Rovvari403.7140.8169.80.0768634.07257115
Eee691.9294.562.540.88620416.910385603
Vasati453.1269.182.90.06814346.711151824
Nyx202.7106.524.38.96511246.52141327
Terran1300253.2168.947.214911797.3304315492
Xuria184.687.843.46.77110203.9321008
Ophoolo345.693.4212.80.062182610.6707806

Edit:

Doug, you think you could do a breakdown like that of my empire? I'd love to see more concretely what I did wrong. Actaully, if you did that for everyone, I think it would go a long way towards making the next game more even in skill level.
You actually did pretty well in making and developing colonies. Your problem, now that I look at it again, was an overly specialized race design and unhappiness. Relative to me you also didn't colonize and spread quickly enough, but you're hardly alone in that and you were far from the worst.

AgentPaper

2010-03-01, 08:34 PM

You actually did pretty well in making and developing colonies. Your problem, now that I look at it again, was an overly specialized race design and unhappiness. Relative to me you also didn't colonize and spread quickly enough, but you're hardly alone in that and you were far from the worst.

Yah, I think my problem was that I had my first colonizers settle relatively close, instead of spreading out quick and then filling in. It also didn't help that my little section of the galaxy had only one way to get out of it...which lead directly into your empire. There was also another connection just north of my home system, but it closed off early on. :smalltongue:

Douglas

2010-03-01, 08:41 PM

There was also another connection just north of my home system, but it closed off early on. :smalltongue:
Warp point closing on one of your two inter-cluster routes is a pretty nasty random event, but with your focus on research that's what Stellar Manipulation technology and warp point openers are for.

Also, 7 ships? Really??? On turn 70?

Oh, and 80% maintenance aptitude is a really bad idea. You know how expensive ships are? Now think about the fact that, with maintenance aptitude that low, just keeping an existing ship from spontaneously disappearing costs almost half of its construction cost - PER TURN.

AgentPaper

2010-03-01, 08:52 PM

Warp point closing on one of your two inter-cluster routes is a pretty nasty random event, but with your focus on research that's what Stellar Manipulation technology and warp point openers are for.

Also, 7 ships? Really??? On turn 70?

Oh, and 80% maintenance aptitude is a really bad idea. You know how expensive ships are? Now think about the fact that, with maintenance aptitude that low, just keeping an existing ship from spontaneously disappearing costs almost half of its construction cost - PER TURN.

Yah, I decided that, by the point I got stellar manipulation done, all the stuff I would be looking to get to would be taken anyways.

And yes, 7 ships, none of which were warships. For exactly the reason you spoke of, high maentenance costs. However, I also had a spaceyard on every single planet, so if there was ever a war, I would start producing whatever ship was my best at the time and keep sending them to the front. Or at least, that was the theory. I never did get a chance to try it out. I suspect that I should still have had a standing army of whatever ships I could afford, and then just replace them as soon as they went down instead.

But yes, lesson learned with those maintenance aptitude. I thought that had something to do with repairing/retrofitting. :smalltongue:

Anyways, I think I'm going to be going for the mercenary empire dealie next empire, with a race very similar to the Rovvari, if not the Rovvari themselves. (Though without some of their stat-determined quirks, like eternal unrest, sending caviar to combat ships, and so on) Then, I'll maintain a couple planets pumping out research and warships scattered across the galaxy, and trade my war faring services for planets and resources.

Aragehaor

2010-03-01, 09:03 PM

{table=head]Empire|Score|Resources|Research|Intel|Tech levels|Systems|Planets|Population|Units|Ships|Base s|Rank
Derajil|3800|1000|754.2|197.2|160|15|140|14.1|3216 |317|40|1
Rovvari|403.7|140.8|169.8|0.0|76|8|63|4.0|725|7|11 |5
Eee|691.9|294.5|62.5|40.8|86|20|41|6.9|1038|56|0|3
Vasati|453.1|269.1|82.9|0.0|68|14|34|6.7|1115|18|2 |4
Nyx|202.7|106.5|24.3|8.9|65|11|24|6.5|214|13|2|7
Terran|1300|253.2|168.9|47.2|149|11|79|7.3|3043|15 4|9|2
Xuria|184.6|87.8|43.4|6.7|71|10|20|3.9|32|10|0|8
Ophoolo|345.6|93.4|212.8|0.0|62|18|26|10.6|707|8|0 |6[/table]

The game lied to me when it said i wasnt dead last i see. :smalltongue:

I did more research with the nyx? Really? I kept forgetting about research (and my colony ships.) with the long delays with the turns... Huh.

(I had more ships. but those were annihilated on-route to reinforce An EEE planet by Douglas's ships. No damage to douglas.)

My only defense here is that i kept forgetting my entire plan after the long delays between turns. Including. but not limited to.

1. Where that colony ship i built is supposed to be Going
2. Research. I somehow forgot about research so many times.
3. Scouting. Somewhat tied to the colony ships mysterious purpose for being built that i would constantly forget with the long delays.
4. Pretty much every plan i ever had. :smallredface:

That said. i plan to write better notes in the new game in an effort not to forget everything i was doing after the long delays.(so. in theory. I'll do better in the effected areas now that im not forgeting everything i was doing.)

Douglas

2010-03-01, 09:06 PM

However, I also had a spaceyard on every single planet, so if there was ever a war, I would start producing whatever ship was my best at the time and keep sending them to the front. Or at least, that was the theory.
That... would not work. At all. Suppose someone attacks you. Let's say it's just a 10 ship fleet. You start building your war fleet. 5 turns later you have 20 ships built, but they're scattered all over the place and you've already lost a system and a half. Let's be generous and say it takes 2 turns for your 20 ships to gather in one spot. You've lost another half system by now, but you finally have your fleet ready. But wait! The invading fleet is trained! If you send your fleet after it now, it'll get massacred. So, 2 turns later your fleet is trained because you cleverly built training centers on a planet and its two moons so they'd stack their rates. The invading fleet is finishing up its third system at this point, maybe even starting on a fourth.

Ok, now you're ready. You kill the invading fleet. Congratulations, invasion defeated. Two problems: you have 3-4 systems you need to completely recolonize and redevelop, and most of your empire is now rioting because of all the planets you lost. Your empire is crippled. You just about might as well be a blind and deaf leper for quite some time to come, and you can bet a bigger fleet is going to come along and wipe out your 20 ships and then finish the job before you've had time to recover. Better hope you have some powerful allies.

Now change that to a serious war fleet of, say, 50 ships... Late game fleets can get up in the hundreds of dreadnoughts...

Having a standing navy constantly ready to defend is not optional past the early game. If you are constantly building a bigger navy all the time, new ships coming out the pipeline might be enough to fend off the remains of a fleet that got decimated in the process of defeating your existing forces. In the best game of SE4 I've ever played, I once had a desperate front where both sides were pouring ships in as fast as they could go, constantly winning a battle and getting wiped out by the next wave, but each wave of reinforcements had started construction several turns before the battle that proved them necessary. If you wait to start building until the attack is already coming, you're dead meat.

Ilena

2010-03-01, 09:11 PM

lol ya, i basicly built a bunch of colonizers the first thing i did, then looked at all breathable planets (as per treaty) in all controlled space to spread, even went outside that, i hope now that i will get a chance to control my empire from the start and everyone else has more experience with the game we will be more of a challenge to you :P

Cobalt

2010-03-01, 09:31 PM

Upon realizing that I only gave an opinion on two things...

I don't think that a DM would be nessisary, but if we did deside on having one I have no idea who it would be, as I know no one myself other than douglas who could come remotely close to filling the qualifications for such a roll. I'd be fine with rules of engagement, and I'm in full support of adding AI players into the mix.

*Runs out of opinions for the moment*

Sanzh

2010-03-01, 10:33 PM

I'd like to join for this game, hopefully I'll actually stay on schedule for turns (and actually have a better system for notes and reports, my later notes were non-existent).
Probably SEIV for the game of choice. I'm not sure about mods, as I've only played the vanilla game. Pirates and Nomads sounds interesting though, despite never having played it the idea of playing a migrant race sounds fun. I'd rather not have AI empires, and banning intelligence operations seems reasonable. Technology trading is fine, but population trading I think should be banned.
I'd be fine with you playing, but it'd be interesting seeing you as some smaller empires. So it's a toss-up on that.
Also those statistics are enlightening, to say the least. Given that I spend most of the game in the black in terms of contact with other empires, or at the least knew little beyond my immediate proximity of the Ophoolo and some of the Derajil worlds.

Smight

2010-03-02, 03:28 AM

It really just favors whoever does it the most. If there are four players, A, B, C, and D, and there are constantly trades going on between A and B, A and C, and A and D, then player A is going to leapfrog ahead of everyone very quickly - and if A keeps quiet about it and B, C, and D don't talk with each other much, no one but A will know.

unless D is much bigger then the rest, no trade will ensure that all small empires will never be any threat even when combined because their ships will be individually weak,

On RP note I propose that instead, or in addition to notes we get Galactic council type Thread, where we can discus IC diplomacy on big floaty discs and have interesting votes, for instance on embargoes rewards penalties laws and such,

yes I always wanted to use "this blockade is perfectly legal" line:smallbiggrin:

EDIT: vote yes on timelimit for turns.

Aragehaor

2010-03-02, 03:47 AM

unless D is much bigger then the rest, no trade will ensure that all small empires will never be any threat even when combined because their ships will be individually weak,

On RP note I propose that instead, or in addition to notes we get Galactic council type Thread, where we can discus IC diplomacy on big floaty discs and have interesting votes, for instance on embargoes rewards penalties laws and such,

yes I always wanted to use "this blockade is perfectly legal" line:smallbiggrin:I agree with That_other_guy, If only because this sounds uncommonly amusing.

Astrella

2010-03-02, 07:23 AM

unless D is much bigger then the rest, no trade will ensure that all small empires will never be any threat even when combined because their ships will be individually weak,

On RP note I propose that instead, or in addition to notes we get Galactic council type Thread, where we can discus IC diplomacy on big floaty discs and have interesting votes, for instance on embargoes rewards penalties laws and such,

yes I always wanted to use "this blockade is perfectly legal" line:smallbiggrin:

EDIT: vote yes on timelimit for turns.

Yes, both on the time limit for turns and the galactic council thing.

Ilena

2010-03-02, 09:52 AM

well im definately ok with the turn time limit, it will provide a greater sense of, omg its going to go on without me who cares if theres 4 people who havnt done their turns yet it will continue on even if they dont do them!

Galatic council would make sense in a way, would be better then the ingame message system :P

But to summarize

- no intellegence
- no population transfers
- prefer no tech trades but at least no colony tech trades,
- definately vote for a turn limit
- ai players i dont care too much about one way or another, though it would be interesting to have in the realm of 20 players playing :P

Cobalt

2010-03-02, 04:51 PM

On RP note I propose that instead, or in addition to notes we get Galactic council type Thread, where we can discus IC diplomacy on big floaty discs and have interesting votes, for instance on embargoes rewards penalties laws and such,

I like this idea.

Also, I think I'd like to change my support of AIs from 'put them in' to 'put them in if we have space we need to fill.' If all the people from the last game return plus more coming in to join, they wouldn't be too nessisary. But if the number is small (say, less than ten) then I say we add a few.

Douglas

2010-03-02, 08:44 PM

Discussion seems to be slowing down now, so I think it's time to put forth my proposal.

1) Intelligence is disabled.
2) Population trading is banned. You can get alien population and use it to undome your planets, but you have to take it by force.
3) Trading colonization technologies is not allowed.
4) Tech trading is allowed, but I will suggest that everyone should have a preference for trading with weaker empires where possible to avoid making one empire too powerful.
5) The turn deadline will be 48 hours and it will be enforced. If the new turn comes out and you don't play within 48 hours, too bad, you missed the turn. There will be exceptions for holidays and reasonable excuses given in advance.
6) All players will give me their empire passwords and I will check up on each player's progress for a while in the beginning. If I see someone is making major mistakes, I will point them out and how to correct them. During this period, I will leave my empire's password blank so everyone can see how I'm doing just like I can see how you're all doing. This should help everyone improve faster and prevent the extreme power disparity of the first game. Once everyone's reasonably well established, I will change my password and stop checking up on everyone.
7) To provide extra impetus for conflict, there will be several "minor" empires. These will be played by me, but with some major strict handicaps to ensure they remain minor. They will colonize their home systems ASAP, but after that they will each build exactly one colony ship every five turns. They will seek unclaimed planets for these ships if any are available nearby, but they will declare war and attack if necessary to make a planet available for a new colony ship. They will be extremely territorial about their home systems, but may consent to share other systems. They can be bribed, traded with, and bullied, but they will have short memories. If you have an annoying neighbor you want to inconvenience without attacking directly, feel free to persuade a minor race to attack your neighbor. I will keep the reasons for minor race actions secret.
8) I will, after generating the map, manually place each empire to ensure an even and fair distribution, and ensure one good planet to colonize in each home system. I will use a random number generator to determine which empire gets which start location.
9) Score display will be set to show allied empires as well as your own.
10) All settings not mentioned so far will be the same as the first game.
11) There will be a turn reports thread, where everyone should attempt to keep at least minimal status information posted up to 20 turns in the past. There will also be a "galactic council" thread where players can publicly debate and attempt to create rules, resolutions, sanctions, etc. in character.

What do you all think about this arrangement?

Aragehaor

2010-03-02, 08:55 PM

Agreed on all points.

What? I have nothing else to say! go! go away! shoo! on with you!

Ilena

2010-03-02, 08:58 PM

Seems pretty well ok, my biggest are the int and pop trading but thats just me so im pleased about that, also

10) All settings not mentioned so far will be the same as the first game.

meaning galaxy size, racial bonus, whatnots? or is that just kinda a rules setting?

Douglas

2010-03-02, 09:01 PM

10) All settings not mentioned so far will be the same as the first game.

meaning galaxy size, racial bonus, whatnots? or is that just kinda a rules setting?
Yes, galaxy size, racial points, etc. I might adjust galaxy size up a little bit to keep the number of systems per player the same after counting off a little for the minor races (there's a number in settings.txt for that), but that's all.

AgentPaper

2010-03-02, 09:32 PM

Sounds good to me. Are we using no mods then? I'm going to be going for a mercenary style empire either way, but if there's one that makes that work better, it might be nice to have.

Ilena

2010-03-02, 09:42 PM

im ok with mods, i dont thnik carrier battles mod would be great for the more newer players as its definately a major change from the standard, takes some getting used to, but other mods i have no problem with i can dl and install whatever needs to be

Cobalt

2010-03-02, 10:00 PM

Sanzh

2010-03-02, 10:10 PM

I think I agree with all of the points douglas made.

Sounds good to me. Are we using no mods then? I'm going to be going for a mercenary style empire either way, but if there's one that makes that work better, it might be nice to have.

While I don't know for certain as I have yet to play with it, I think that Pirates and Nomads would presumably help, especially seeing as it allows for races that don't require planets (which sounds somewhat similar to what you want and would let you break free of needing planets to fuel your roving interstellar mercenary companies).

As for my own empire, I'm considering playing a group of corrupt interstellar corporations forming an ad-hoc nation, if only so I can deny that I'm waging war and instead refer to conflicts as hostile takeovers.

Smight

2010-03-03, 04:55 AM

2) Population trading is banned.
3) Trading colonization technologies is not allowed.

don't like this with both options disallowed , there is distinct possibility that you already lost before game starts, because you are at total mercy of RNG,
also minor races are nothing but free population for races with better start while attentional hurdles for ones with bad luck.

Douglas

2010-03-03, 08:50 AM

don't like this with both options disallowed , there is distinct possibility that you already lost before game starts, because you are at total mercy of RNG,
also minor races are nothing but free population for races with better start while attentional hurdles for ones with bad luck.
What if I manually check the map for number of colonizable/breathable planets (taking size into account) near each homeworld (there are some in game tools that make this not that troublesome) and manually edit it to ensure reasonable consistency in that regard?

Ilena

2010-03-03, 10:16 AM

I dont mind either way, i just wana play :P but i still prefer no colony trading and pop trading myself though,

Juhn

2010-03-03, 10:42 AM

As much as I'd like to play (and I would), it's already become painfully clear that I just don't have the time. Seems you guys are about ready to go anyway.

Have fun, guys. I'm curious to see what Crixon can do on her own, without having to inherit a failing empire with profoundly naive foreign policy.

Smight

2010-03-03, 11:33 AM

What if I manually check the map for number of colonizable/breathable planets (taking size into account) near each homeworld (there are some in game tools that make this not that troublesome) and manually edit it to ensure reasonable consistency in that regard?

that will work for RNG part, but it still makes alliances much less worthwhile promote backstabbery and gives advantage to big empires, and makes defensive alliance weaker, so I still vote no, but whatever gets most votes goes,

Douglas

2010-03-03, 12:35 PM

Could you explain how those two bans promote backstabbing and the rest? Trading other technologies is still allowed, and I'm really not seeing the logic behind what you said.

Also, the lack of conflict was one major complaint posted near the end of the first game. Too much peace is boring.

Ilena

2010-03-03, 01:05 PM

Oh trust me, there will be conflict .... there will be conflict .... and thx juhn, your empire was good, just not my play style :P though things could defiantely have been improved by more rapid colonization :P

Smight

2010-03-03, 01:18 PM

Could you explain how those two bans promote backstabbing and the rest? Trading other technologies is still allowed, and I'm really not seeing the logic behind what you said.

Since there is only one way to get population that is not yours, there is more likelihood that when your neighbour is under attack you will join the attack instead of helping him,
also let's say we have three smaller empires A,B,C defending against one large D with no room to expand, theoretically that will give D 4 breathable types of planet to colonize and a room to grow even more, wile A,B,C are stuck with one and virtually no hope of getting more production or fighting back,

that is at least my opinion,
as I said whatever option gets votes wins I have no problem accepting those rules

Also, the lack of conflict was one major complaint posted near the end of the first game. Too much peace is boring.

Well you certainly can't blame me for that just ask EEE:smallwink:

Douglas

2010-03-03, 01:39 PM

Ah, so you're saying that an attacker powerful enough to attack multiple empires and still defend himself will gain an additional advantage through stealing population types. That is a valid point, but I don't think it's an insurmountable one. If D is powerful enough to be practically invulnerable to an alliance of A, B, and C with present resources, then it doesn't really matter, D's going to win anyway. If not, the new population will take quite a while to spread through the empire and provide increased production, and if the other three empires are smart and aware of the power imbalance they should seek to rebalance things by each stealing some of D's population before D's power has time to increase too much.

Basically, it is a powerful unbalancing factor, but I think it can be balanced out simply by the players knowing about it and acting appropriately. I imagine the galactic council idea might factor into this a bit, too.

Astrella

2010-03-03, 02:25 PM

Oh, what is a good place to get some nice shipsets? Since I'm not wanting to use one of the stock sets this time.

Also, the Galactic Council should be called the Landsraad.

Douglas

2010-03-03, 02:41 PM

More shipsets than you could possibly need. (http://spaceempires.net/downloads-cat-7.html) 269 of them, to be specific.

Ilena

2010-03-03, 03:31 PM

lol ya i dled that ... i am going to have to look through them to see which ones i like :P

Cobalt

2010-03-03, 04:28 PM

Ooo, I spy the neutral shipset among all these. I think I'll be roaming the galaxy as the Zynarra Zishjash.

Now to figure out how to download the thing into SEIV so that I can...

Ilena

2010-03-03, 04:34 PM

now remember i dont have my comp here at the moment as im at work but i think if you go to the SE4 folder and find the empires folder, just plopping them all into there SHOULD be all you need to do, quick and easy test start a new game and look at the ship sets :P

Astrella

2010-03-03, 04:58 PM

You have to put the shipset folder into Pictures -> Races.
Empires is for actual empires with history, etc., not for the shipsets.

Cobalt

2010-03-03, 05:01 PM

I'm almost certain that I just overlooked something obvious, but it didn't work. Hmm...
*pokes it with a stick*
I'll fiddle with it a bit.

Douglas

2010-03-03, 05:07 PM

Go to whatever folder you installed Space Empires 4 in. From there, open the Pictures folder. From there, open the Races folder. Download the zip file from the website and extract its contents to the folder you just opened. This should create a new folder named zishjash inside the Races folder, with a whole bunch of bitmap image files inside it. Start up Space Empires 4, start making a new game, and click to create a new empire. The Zishjash Guard should now show up as an option for race and ship appearance (commonly referred to as "shipset"), though with its place in the alphabet you'll have to scroll past the entire rest of the list.

Cobalt

2010-03-03, 05:28 PM

I... Have no idea what's going wrong.
After doing all that and seeing that the shipset didnit appear as a selection in game, I went and looked into the files under Races. It wasn't even there. 'Hm. Must have accidently deleted it or something,' I thought. But as I went to redownload it, I saw it under the Races folder with a sign of a lock on the folder image. Won't open in game or out, and I can't figure out how to unlock it, or whatever I should be doing.

EDIT: Sweet luck of the Irish, my CP must be moody because after the fifth try ("If I do the same thing over and over again, maybe it'll work...") it did work. I won't question it. Thanks for the help.

Astrella

2010-03-03, 05:33 PM

Did you unzip it the first time? Otherwise that was probably the problem.
On that note, if you have Vista, I'd advise moving the Space Empires folder out of program files, that will avoid you a lot of issues later when you try to upload your empire etc. (Speaking out of experience...)

Douglas

2010-03-03, 05:38 PM

Yes, Vista is rather overly protective of the Program Files folder, and that can cause problems sometimes.

Cobalt

2010-03-03, 05:54 PM

It was unzipped, but for whatever reason it didn't want to work. But yeah, it all seems to be working now, and I tried downloading another one just to be sure.

Aragehaor

2010-03-03, 06:05 PM

Just a note, Ill probably be using the Observers Legion (http://spaceempires.net/downloads-details-201-Legion_Imperium.html#dldetails) ship set. (I decided i like Legion better. Wont change it again. Promise.)

So yeah...

Mine. :smalltongue:

Ilena

2010-03-04, 01:15 AM

im claiming the SW reb :P rebels ahoy!

AgentPaper

2010-03-04, 02:33 AM

And I will be claiming the "low" shipset. That is, unless I can find/make a nice shipset based on the Caldari from EvE. :smalltongue:

Douglas

2010-03-04, 01:18 PM

Ok then, it seems my plan is approved and I think it's time to start making empires. I would like to start this weekend if possible, so please be prompt.

Step by step instructions:
1) If you want to use a non-standard shipset, get it set up first.
2) Start SE4 with no mod.
3) Click to start a new game.
4) Change the setting for racial points to High (5000)
5) Create your empire.
6) Select your empire and click Save to File. Name the file whatever you like and save it.
7) Email your empire file (extension .emp) and password (remember, I'll be playing supervisor/tutor early on this time) to me. You should find it in the Empires folder inside your main Space Empires 4 installation folder. Returning players already have my email address. I will PM it to the new player.

It is not (yet) too late for more new players to join. Post your interest here and I will PM my email address to you.

Advice on empire design, and explanation of what the various options do:
Environment: If there is any strictly better option here, it's "whatever everyone else didn't pick" - particularly for atmosphere. Gas/None is not a legal combination. Rock or Ice/None will get you a lot of breathable moons, but no gas giants will ever be breathable for your race. Rock and Ice are pretty much equal. Gas giants will get you fewer but bigger planets, roughly balancing out.

Culture: Berzerkers is the definite best due to the +10 space combat bonus. Merchants might be worth considering for the maintenance bonus, but even that is a second choice.

Characteristics:
Physical Strength: This affects your troops performance in ground combat. As ground combat usually features the attacker bringing overwhelming strength, this is almost never going to change who wins. It might affect how many casualties the winner takes, but the difference is unlikely to be significant. I always drop it to the minimum.
Intelligence: This affects your research rate. Raising it up to 120% is always a good idea, but going above that is usually not worth the increased cost. Increasing up to 120% costs 25 points per percentage increase, but 121% and beyond cost 100 per point of increase.
Cunning: This affects your production of points for intelligence operations. Intelligence will be disabled in this game, so this is literally irrelevant. Drop it to the minimum for free points. I'll be doing it, and so should everyone else.
Environmental Resistance: Every 5 points in this is equivalent to 1 point in each of Reproduction and Happiness. See the advice for those entries and do some math on the costs. Dropping this a lot is well worth it, though you might want to boost Reproduction a little to compensate.
Reproduction: Each point away from 100% in this increases or decreases reproduction rates by that amount on all your planets. If a planet would normally have 10% reproduction per year and you have 105% Reproduction characteristic, the planet will have 15% reproduction. Note that lowering this too far can result in planets having 0% reproduction, which is very bad. Having a really high reproduction rate is not especially important, but having at least some reproduction is very important.
Happiness: This has an over time effect on happiness throughout your empire. If it is over 100%, it will gradually make your people happier. If it is under 100%, it will gradually make your people less happy. Happiness can translate into a +20% bonus to all resource and research production at best or total loss of production at worst. There are many other things that affect happiness, however, and troops in particular can easily overwhelm this characteristic's effect. I usually drop this to the minimum. If you do so, be aware that researching troops technology should be a very high priority for you so that you will be able to counteract the penalty before it gets out of hand. 20-30 troops per planet is enough to handle happiness in normal times even with the maximum penalty, though you might need more if a war is going badly.
Aggressiveness: This adds directly to your chance to hit with direct fire weapons in combat. This is critically important. Boost it to 120%. If you have the points to spare, going all the way to the maximum of 125% despite increased cost is a good idea though not essential.
Defensiveness: This subtracts directly from your enemies chance to hit you with direct fire weapons in combat. This is critically important. Boost it to 120%. If you have the points to spare, going all the way to the maximum of 125% despite increased cost is a good idea though not essential.
Political Savvy: Your income from trade treaties is multiplied by this value. A Trade and Research Alliance will, once it's built up to the maximum rate over 20 turns, give you 20% of your ally's resource and research production as a free bonus. If your Political Savvy is 50%, you will instead get only 10% of your ally's production. If your political Savvy is 150%, you will instead get 30% of his production. Note that this is extra production, your ally does not lose anything for it. How useful this characteristic is depends a great deal on how many allies you expect to have and how powerful you expect them to be relative to you. Personally, I usually drop it to around 80% where it starts giving reduced returns for dropping it further, but doing otherwise (in either direction) might be better for some of you.
Mining Aptitude: This affects your minerals production throughout your empire. Minerals is the most important of the three resources, so I usually boost this to 120%.
Farming Aptitude: This affects your organics production throughout your empire. Organics is the least important of the three resources for most races, so I usually drop it to 80% or even lower. Races with the Organic Manipulation advanced trait will use a lot more organics than other races, however, so races with that trait should not lower this below 80% and might consider keeping it higher or even raising it above 100%. Even for races with that trait, however, this is still secondary to minerals.
Refining Aptitude: This affects your radioactive production throughout your empire. Radioactives is the middle of the three resources in importance (except for races with Organic Manipulation). The gap between radioactives and minerals is, however, big enough that I usually drop this to 80%. If you're really pressed for points you might consider dropping it even lower.
Construction Aptitude: This affects how quickly your space yards build things. There are very few things that affect that, and it is very important. You should never drop this, and I usually raise it to at least 120%.
Repair Aptitude: This affects how quickly you can repair ships. Repair works on a number of components basis and rounds down to whole integers. If you have a repair bay that can repair 5 components per turn, a race with 80% repair aptitude would repair 4 components per turn while a race with 79% repair aptitude would repair 3 components per turn. Note that repair capacity is totaled up for all repair bays and space yards in the same location, and I'm fairly sure the modifier and rounding for aptitude is applied last, so a race with 50% repair aptitude and two of these repair bays would repair (5+5)*.5 = 5 components per turn rather than (5*.5) + (5*.5) = 2+2 = 4 per turn. Repair bays and space yards come in 3 levels, which repair 3, 5, and 8 components per turn. Planetary space yards, including the one your homeworld starts with, repair 5 components per turn regardless of level. Note that Berzerkers imposes a -2% repair penalty, so if you chose Berzerkers and want 80% repair rates you should put Repair Aptitude at 82%.
Maintenance Aptitude: By default, you pay 25% of each ship's construction cost per turn just to prevent your ships from spontaneously disappearing. Thus, you have to pay the cost of rebuilding your entire fleet every four turns. Each point you adjust Maintenance Aptitude changes maintenance costs by the same amount. If you increase Maintenance Aptitude to 110%, you will pay 15% of construction cost each turn for maintenance. If you drop it to 80%, you will pay 45% of construction cost each turn. If you increase it to the maximum of 120%, you will pay 5% of construction cost each turn. This is extremely expensive in terms of racial points, but it is a correspondingly large benefit. You should, at the very least, get this to 110%, the point where further increases start costing more. Note, btw, that maintenance rates are hard-coded to a minimum of 5%. Taking the Merchants culture and boosting Maintenance Aptitude to 120% will not get you 0% maintenance. Sorry, no unlimited size fleets.

Advanced Traits:
Advanced Power Conservation: This reduces the supply use of your ships by 25%. This will increase the distance your ships can travel before needing resupply. Resupplying your ships is sufficiently easy, however, that this is far from worth its cost.

Mechanoids: This makes you immune to plagues. Plague random events are not all that incredibly frequent, however, and the technology to cure them is not terribly expensive. Not worth the points.

Lucky: Reduces the chance of bad random events hitting you. This is not a sufficiently large concern to be worth 1000 points. The one random event bad enough to maybe be worth it, namely a supernova, is not affected anyway due to the game not recognizing a star as belonging to you.

Natural Merchants: If you're always having trouble remembering to build a space port in each system, or forgetting that you already have one being built so you build multiples, this trait gets rid of that problem. If you have this trait, you do not need space ports. This also lets you get new systems up and running a little bit faster. I do not consider this trait worth its cost, but it's not terrible and it can make managing your empire easier.

Propulsion Experts: All your ships move faster, by 1 square per turn. This is good. Not the best trait, but well worth taking.

Ancient Race: You start the game with the entire galaxy already explored. This can help considerably with making sure your early expansion goes in the right directions so you get the best planets quickly. It is a decent pick, possibly worth the cost.

Advanced Storage Techniques: Take this. Always. This increases the number of facilities your planets can hold by 20%, which translates into a 20% increase in all resource and research production. This is easily the best trait available. It also increases cargo space and population limits on planets, but those are rather less important.

Hardy Industrialists: This is like an extra 25% Construction Aptitude, but for planetary space yards only. It is well worth the price if you have already increased Construction Aptitude substantially.

Psychic: You gain access to the psychic racial technologies. This gets you two things worth noting: System Training Facilities and Allegiance Converters. Normal training facilities require that a ship be in the same location to get trained. A psychic training facility can train all ships in the same system. This can help with training bases if that matters to you (most likely if you have a really stable important border somewhere that you've had long enough to build defensive starbases on the warp point), and the rate of training can stack with a normal training facility. Also, you can use this to train ships on the move. The Allegiance Converter is a high-end psychic weapon that shoots once per combat and can instantly convert an enemy ship to your side. Shields and armor are ignored, all you have to do is hit and do enough "damage" (the damage of this weapon is the percent chance of success if you hit). This is, however, completely negated by Master Computers. It can be a powerful advantage, but it's a tad risky to depend on. The research that gets you this weapon also gets you a few decent but not spectacular normal weapons to fall back on, though.

Deeply Religious: This trait is banned. If you select this trait, I will reject your empire and demand that you make a new one. See the first few posts of the previous game's thread for an explanation of why.

Temporal Knowledge: This gets you access to the temporal manipulation racial technologies. The main thing of note here is the Temporal Space Yard. It costs twice as much to build, but even the level 1 version has a faster build rate than a level 3 normal space yard. At max level, this gets you 4500 base construction rate on your planets (there is no non-planetary version) instead of 3000.

Crystallurgy: This gets you access to the crystalline racial technologies. The main thing of note here is Crystalline Armor, which can make for some very hard to damage ships that are also cheaper than normal. It doesn't really get to its full benefit until you have room to put 10 Crystalline Armor component on the same ship along with a shield generator, though, which pretty much means Dreadnoughts if you want to have enough space left over for a decent array of weapons. You also get the by far best armor-skipping weapon in the game. Great against opponents that rely on lots of armor, but not as good as the normal best weapon against shields. Still reasonably decent against everything, though.

Organic Manipulation: This gets you access to the organics racial technologies. This gets you a) Extreme Population Growth and b) Really Cheap Ships. At the top level of organic technology, you get a facility that gives all planets in the same system +40 million population per turn. This is pretty much the only way to get meaningful population bonuses throughout your empire without waiting until long after the game ends. It still takes a while, though, and a fair bit of research. You also get organic armor and organic weapons. Organic armor is one of the best armors available, though it's still weaker than shields, but organic weapons are significantly inferior to the best normal weapons. However, both organic armor and organic weapons cost primarily organics, which makes your ships effectively cheaper due to costing less of the primary resource (minerals) and makes them faster to build. If you focus on organic ships, your ships will be less powerful but you will have a lot more of them.

Emotionless: Utter crap. Sure, your planets will never riot and you can drop Happiness all the way to 50% with no penalty, but your planets will also never be Jubilant (+20% production) and troops can take care of happiness pretty easily anyway. You can spend 3000 points to actively penalize yourself if you really want to, but this is pretty close to the worst choice you could make in empire design.

Description: The only thing that has an in game effect on this tab is Happiness Type. You want Peaceful. Both Bloodthirsty and Neutral outright suck. Expanding your empire through colonization causes unhappiness with Bloodthirsty. This is, as I'm sure any of you who remember my numerous statements about the importance of rapid expansion can tell, Very Bad. Just about everything (exceptions: troops and Non-Intercourse treaties; yes, that really is the complete list) causes unhappiness with Neutral. Fill in the rest however you like, it's just fluff. Other players will be able to see your descriptions, but that's all.

Ilena

2010-03-04, 03:08 PM

absolutely love that advice and very useful indeed, already building my race in my mind, im trying to decide if i actually want to go none for atmosphere o not, i mean moons are great and all and can have dam good resources sometimes but ... how many? or go something that gas giants can be and have larger worlds later in game ..... ah choices choices :P

Astrella

2010-03-04, 03:21 PM

Right, decided on a shipset, the Addisians (http://spaceempires.net/downloads-details-97-Addisian.html#dldetails). Gonna change the race picture though.

Gonna make my empire right away.

In case anyone's interested, here's the description:
Biological Description:
The Vendyr share varying body structures, due to extensive genetic experimentation and use of mutagens. They all share the characteristic bright-blue eyes, a protection against the strange elektromagnetic spectrum of their home star.

Society Description:
The Vendyr society is basically one gigantic coorporation, divided in an unkown number of Divisions, each responsable for an aspect of Vendyr life, be it trade actions, research or how to properly paint dinner plates.

General History:
The Vendyr were quick to release the immense possibilities for profit in this huge galaxy. They are mostly know as excellent shipwrights, and offer their vessels to all interested parties.

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 03:42 PM

Made my empire and sent it to douglas. General history, Society description and Biological description will be covered in the turn reports. (And possibly in the other thread. if its deemed important enough to put there.)

(I spent more then an hour making sure i didnt horribly screw my self over probably still did though. :smalltongue:)

Smight

2010-03-04, 03:44 PM

Empire sent,

shipset "sw-tf" from te bulk download,
hopefuly I didn't make any big mistakes, I'm not expert on MIN/MAXing

Astrella

2010-03-04, 03:46 PM

Ah, I can't wait to get started again. :smallbiggrin:

Ilena

2010-03-04, 04:11 PM

i know, when i get home its the first thing im doing :P

AgentPaper

2010-03-04, 05:07 PM

Douglas

2010-03-04, 05:16 PM

Working on it right now. I know bloodthirsty is a bad trait for most empires, but I don't plan to do too much expansion, and do plan to fight in a LOT of wars, so would bloodthirsty actually be worthwhile for me?
Maybe. I'd still go Peaceful anyway. Early game, you WILL have to expand, and expand fast, if you want to be powerful enough to be able to engage in those wars in the first place without getting annihilated. Mid and late game, you should be able to build enough police troops to render it irrelevant.

Also, if you seriously plan to play as a mercenary race and make that a major source of income and research, I imagine you will have to present your sales pitch pretty aggressively.

AgentPaper

2010-03-04, 05:21 PM

Maybe. I'd still go Peaceful anyway. Early game, you WILL have to expand, and expand fast, if you want to be powerful enough to be able to engage in those wars in the first place without getting annihilated. Mid and late game, you should be able to build enough police troops to render it irrelevant.

Hmm, that's true, though I don't technically need to be powerful enough to wage those wars. I just need to find someone else powerful enough and willing to spend the resources. :smalltongue:

I do plan to be building a lot of police troops in any case, though, on all of my planets, so I guess from a min/max standpoint it's still the best option. So, a different way of asking the question: If I did pick Bloodthirsty for RP reasons, how much would it effect my early-game expansion?

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 05:36 PM

Making my empire now. It'll be done in just a bit.

EDIT: Sent. I think...

Sanzh

2010-03-04, 07:05 PM

My empire should be on its way. I'll be using the Amonkrie ship set, but the race description doesn't match the portrait (and short of drawing my own I don't think I'll find one that fits). And the ships kind of match what I was thinking of so it's acceptable.

Astrella

2010-03-04, 07:14 PM

AgentPaper

2010-03-04, 07:17 PM

Yeah, on further thought I'm just going to be going for peaceful, and then ignore that when doing any sort of RP. I assume everyone else will be doing the same.

Anyways, my empire is done, (no crippling mistakes this time, I hope!) sending it now. I'm also sending you my shipset, since I edited the race portrait again. :smalltongue:

Astrella

2010-03-04, 07:20 PM

Ah, Douglas, do you need my shipset as well then? Since I too edited my race portrait.

Douglas

2010-03-04, 07:33 PM

If you want your shipset, including portrait, to look the same for everyone as it does for you, you will have to provide it to me. If it's available for download somewhere I already know about, I'll go find it myself. If you customized it, I'll need your customized version.

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 07:34 PM

The Zishjash. (http://spaceempires.net/downloads-details-88-Zishjash_Guard.html#dldetails)
Just realized that I didn't post a link to it. Now you can tremble in fear at the very sight of my mighty fleet of generic looking ships and the jellyfish who pilot them.

Also, as an after thought...

Biological Description:
Resembling a jellyfish, the Zishjash are an underwater species that can live off of oxygen alone for short periods of time. Physically weak, they glow a purplish hue and move like slugs on solid ground, relying on mechanical bodies to accomplish anything above the surface of an ocean. They have an average lifespan of 125 years, but have been known to surpass this when using mechanical bodies for lifesupport.

Society Description:
The Zishjash are divided into three social castes; the working and researcher class, the military, and the ruling class. The working and researcher class make up the majority, with the military (known as the ‘Zishjash Guard’) acting as the hand of the ruling politicians. Each and every member of the society has the ability to advance within and even beyond the class they are born into, as the laws set in place allow many freedoms to the individual while still making an effective and productive nation.

General History:
After the unification of their species under a central government, the Zishjash quickly focused their efforts on space travel to solve to ever-growing problem of overpopulation on their home world. The newest Praetor, realizing the problem, utilized the high number of scientists at his disposal and, by focusing all of their efforts for a solid decade toward space travel, they achieved the necessary technology for space flight in the year 2400.

I didn't actually put those in the empire file, but I figure I might as well have them, for fluff's sake.

Douglas

2010-03-04, 08:27 PM

Hmm. AgentPaper, I can see what you're going for with that empire design, and it is workable, but you're going to have to put some serious effort into making it work.

So, um, everyone be aware that there are mercenaries for hire and they're seriously dependent on people hiring them. They'll be good mercenaries, but they'll require frequent employment to remain so. That, or a whole lot of treaties to take advantage of their 120% political savvy.

Of the other empires I've received so far, all of them go for a more standard style. Some of them have some obvious extra min-max things they could do, but they're all reasonably good. No empire I've received so far should be crippled by empire design, with the possible exception of AgentPaper if he can't get good enough pay for his services.

Ilena

2010-03-04, 09:00 PM

done and sent, i hope i didnt screw myself over with it but we will see! :D

AgentPaper

2010-03-04, 09:26 PM

I don't think I'll have too much trouble. I can't think of any realistic situation I could be in where I would be in any real danger of being wiped out.

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 09:35 PM

I don't think I'll have too much trouble. I can't think of any realistic situation I could be in where I would be in any real danger of being wiped out.

Race A) decides it wants your territory. Race A) Decides that your also too risky to be left alive, i mean what if the mercs attacked Race A)?

Race A) Attacks in full force.

That is, of course assuming this takes place before you have alliances with half the galaxy. :smalltongue:

EDIT: Hmm, Perhaps i should edit in a race portarit (That i(or someone else) drew Or found.) Hmm.... I suppose if it really means that much to you guys.

AgentPaper

2010-03-04, 09:55 PM

Race A) decides it wants your territory. Race A) Decides that your also too risky to be left alive, i mean what if the mercs attacked Race A)?

Race A) Attacks in full force.

That is, of course assuming this takes place before you have alliances with half the galaxy. :smalltongue:

I thought of that, but if they just wanted my land, well, I won't have much of that in the first place, and they'll have to fight harder for that small amount of land than they would for a larger amount of land owned by a less militaristic race. (something that will likely describe, oh, every single other race out there, more likely than not)

And if they think I'm too risky to be left alive, that means they're afraid that specific other empires will pay me to attack them, which means there's other races out there that can pay for my services, and that those empires have little military ability and lots of resources. And if there are, then it shouldn't be hard to convince those races to pay me to fight off the aggressor empire, because otherwise they'll have him attacking their own populations, and be unable to pay me for support.

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 10:07 PM

I thought of that, but if they just wanted my land, well, I won't have much of that in the first place, and they'll have to fight harder for that small amount of land than they would for a larger amount of land owned by a less militaristic race. (something that will likely describe, oh, every single other race out there, more likely than not)

And if they think I'm too risky to be left alive, that means they're afraid that specific other empires will pay me to attack them, which means there's other races out there that can pay for my services, and that those empires have little military ability and lots of resources. And if there are, then it shouldn't be hard to convince those races to pay me to fight off the aggressor empire, because otherwise they'll have him attacking their own populations, and be unable to pay me for support.

True, its unlikely anyone will be able to kill you alone mid-late game without other races attacking them, and having little land does make the appeal of invading you go down.

This brings to mind a curious thought to my mind though, How will the Council thread work? Will we all be in the council and know of everyone else from the start then? Or will it be different?

Such as only members who have met the other races in-game can talk to only those races?

Unrelated note, i plan to be very militaristic. (Not bloodthirsty)

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 10:10 PM

I thought of that, but if they just wanted my land, well, I won't have much of that in the first place, and they'll have to fight harder for that small amount of land than they would for a larger amount of land owned by a less militaristic race. (something that will likely describe, oh, every single other race out there, more likely than not)

And if they think I'm too risky to be left alive, that means they're afraid that specific other empires will pay me to attack them, which means there's other races out there that can pay for my services, and that those empires have little military ability and lots of resources. And if there are, then it shouldn't be hard to convince those races to pay me to fight off the aggressor empire, because otherwise they'll have him attacking their own populations, and be unable to pay me for support.

Though you'd still have to defend against a *stronger* empire than your own, even if this situation were to occur. You'd just be getting a paycheck while doing it.

EDIT: To clarify, it's assumed that the attacking empire would be stronger because otherwise they probably wouldn't be attacking in the first place. As for a reason to attack, maybe they're desperate for expansion and you're planets are the only place left to go without calling upon the rath of God douglas.

EDIT2: Heck, the attacking empire might even be douglas.

AgentPaper

2010-03-04, 10:21 PM

Sanzh

2010-03-04, 10:24 PM

I'm guessing for the Council thread, it'll just start in spoiler tags with notes for who the message should be sent to or is allowed to read it (for more sweeping messages), and once contact with all other races is established then spoiler tags can start being removed.

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 10:38 PM

There's also the bit where I plan to have my planets spread out over the system, and not all collected together, though I'll likely have at least a system or two that I can call "mine".

At best, they might attack and knock out a bunch of my resource-producing planets. At which point, they will have shown their hostility to the rest of the galaxy, who will then have a very good reason to pay me to attack them.

Assuming people let you have planets in there systems. (I wouldn't, Not out of any hostility on my part mind, But because its either a wasted planet or a danger.)

even so im sure some people will let you do that. so thats beside the point.

Your second part is a bit iffie, i mean i can see other races declaring war on them or funding your war with them if their your friends/allies.

but i cant picture the odd faction that isn't friendly with you and isn't aligned with you declaring war on the other faction just because they invaded the merc faction that they dont practically care about.

At best they would Increase protection on there borders (if they had any) with the other empire.

At worst they wouldnt care.

Unless of course were assuming every faction likes you that is. (And that the galaxy is very anti-war)

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 10:49 PM

(And that the galaxy is very anti-war)

And seeing as this whole thread we're talking in exists in large part because of people thinking there was not enough war...
Yeah.

Ha.

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 10:58 PM

And seeing as this whole thread we're talking in exists in large part because of people thinking there was not enough war...
Yeah.

Ha.

of course. attacking agentpaper could start a GW I (Galaxy War) Due to that same Bloodthirsty nature we apparently had....

Know what? Agentpapers going to be fine. sure, the whole galaxy (Excluding a few non-bloodthirsty ones.) might go to war over him. but still.

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 11:05 PM

Hey, I at least won't go to war with him (outright). I like the idea of hiring mercs to do the dirty work, and it'll free my own ships to steamroll those handicapped extra empires explore the galaxy for mineral rich planets to plunder colonize because they obviously aren't claimed by anyone else.

Warwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwa rwarwarwar

I am very peaceful.

But yeah, all jokes aside, I would probably be hiring him when I get into my first war. Wonder what the rates for merc fleets are these days...

Douglas

2010-03-04, 11:11 PM

I imagine technology would be a very good but double-edged payment method. It doesn't actually cost you anything, it removes the technology you give from the available options for other people to use as payment, and it makes your friendly mercenaries permanently more powerful. On the other hand, if anyone ever hires them to attack you, that permanent power increase is irrevocable.

Of course, he will also need the resources to actually build and maintain his fleets, and his own production of those won't be very high...

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 11:17 PM

Douglas is probably the only one who would never need to use agentpapers army but still use it anyway for a ample distraction while He steamrolls your now slightly less defended colonys. :smalltongue:

Douglas

2010-03-04, 11:22 PM

Minor races will also be available for hire if you really need it, but I expect they'll be less powerful, less dependable, much more local, and will never take the initiative in asking for a contract.

Oh yeah, some of you may have already thought of this, but I imagine it would not be difficult to reach an agreement with AgentPaper about paying extra to keep his employer's identity secret...

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 11:25 PM

Well, it's nice to know that there's always fodder on hand, anyway. Never know when my flank could use a bit of extra support, and I'm sure that those Minor empires can't resist all my shiny resources.

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 11:27 PM

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 11:29 PM

Added tax?
I can only imagine what sorts of things would show up on the bill...

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 11:35 PM

Added tax?
I can only imagine what sorts of things would show up on the bill...

Oh sure, for example.

"**Bill for services rendered.**

** 1 Technology Weapon related for Attack. **

** 200,000 Resource Labor tax. **

** 500,000 Resource Ship Tax. **

** 1 Added Technology for Employer's anonymous status to remain that way. **

** 300,000 Resource Burial Tax. **

** 400,000 Resource Beneficial ship Shine tax.**"

Something around that is what i expected. :smalltongue:

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 11:38 PM

When you see something like '27 ships lost' on the price tag, though, you say something like "Your services will no longer be needed" and immediately invade-

Wait. I think we've covered this before...
*scrolls up*

Ah. Yes we did.

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 11:40 PM

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 11:46 PM

Indeed.
I'm starting to see the appeal of having people you can hire to help in comba-

Wait...
Dang it!

Aragehaor

2010-03-04, 11:54 PM

Anyways. When are we starting?

Cobalt

2010-03-04, 11:56 PM

I believe douglas said that he plans for Saturday to be the start, though it may be Fri- *looks at clock* later today, if we're lucky.

Ilena

2010-03-05, 08:32 AM

Ya something like that ... its going to be a very interesting game i have to say, i have NEVER played a race like this, and i have no idea if i screwed myself over or not but we will see! Good luck to you all and to all a good morning!

Oh doug, you will be playing a race for yourself and ontop of that a few minor races that are handicapped correct? Will we know which races are the handicapped races via name posted or obvious name of handicap 1 or something? I think its important to know when you meet someone if its god i mean the real doug or just one of his minor empire nations :P

Douglas

2010-03-05, 08:50 AM

Minor races will be named after their home systems, will be listed after all player races in the empire lists, both in game and on the web site, and I might do something with their descriptions and shipsets.

For my real empire, I'll be using the same shipset and empire name as before: Derajil.

Ilena

2010-03-05, 09:25 AM

ok sounds good, just need to know when to say omg run and we can takeum charge! :P

DarkCorax

2010-03-05, 05:40 PM

If this is still open, I'm interested in joining, I've played a few single-player games after reading Maxymiuk's let's play, but I'm sure multiplayer is a very different experience...
However, I am expecting to be gone for about a month without access to the internet or a computer in the summer hols, which could cause problems for a multiplayer game, so if it would be easier for me not play I would understand.

Douglas

2010-03-05, 05:46 PM

It's still open, though for a month-long absence I'd want to get a temporary substitute rather than pausing the game or letting you miss that many turns. I could do it myself if no other option is available, but with me already playing the minor races I'd prefer if you get a trusted ally to do it or find another player.

Anyway, you're welcome to join, just email me your empire and password promptly.

AgentPaper

2010-03-05, 06:19 PM

If worse comes to worse, you'll be having the computer control your empire for that time. Which mightwill probablywill definitely cause a fewsomemany problems, but in the end you'll survive. (probablymaybe)

DarkCorax

2010-03-05, 06:52 PM

Aragehaor

2010-03-05, 06:57 PM

Yeah, I'll try and find someone to substitute in for me while I'm gone, it would probably be a toss up whether submitting no orders or letting the AI take control would be worse :smallyuk:. Can you PM your email please douglas?

You didnt tell him your Email douglas? And you expected him to send you the empire without knowing? For shame douglas For shame. :smalltongue:

Douglas

2010-03-05, 07:01 PM

Oops. Fixed now.

DarkCorax

2010-03-05, 07:15 PM

Empire sent. I'll be using the Pyron Collective (http://spaceempires.net/shipyards-details-32-Pyron_Collective.html) shipset. (Pyramids in Spaaace!)

Ilena

2010-03-05, 08:50 PM

so how many do we have playin not including dougs flunkies? :P oh i changed to the narn shipset btw

Douglas

2010-03-05, 08:54 PM

Me, six players returning from the first game, two new players recruited from here, and one of my coworkers who showed some interest. He hasn't quite had time to register here and make his empire yet, but he should be ready tonight or tomorrow. That's a total of 10 players.

Ilena

2010-03-05, 09:03 PM

crowded galaxy :P going to be fun!!!

MerwinSpawn

2010-03-06, 01:01 PM

Astrella

2010-03-06, 01:05 PM

Looking forward to reduce your cities to piles of... doing business with you.

Oh, a small question for you, Douglas. How viable are drones? And what would be the best time to use them?

Ilena

2010-03-06, 01:56 PM

I also have a question, does racial attack bonus and def bonus also effect fighters and drones?

Douglas

2010-03-06, 03:39 PM

Drones are fire-and-forget weapons that I usually don't think are worth it. They can only be given attack orders, and their orders cannot be canceled. Once launched, they cannot be recovered. They cannot be part of fleets, and cannot benefit from experience. They are usually armed with warheads and given a ramming strategy.

A drone packed full of warheads and told to ram can do quite a bit of damage, but they can be shot down by point defense and don't survive to be reused. I think they are usually not worth the construction cost for a one-shot item, but on the other hand they are exempt from maintenance costs due to being a unit instead of a ship or base.

If you're going with swarms of missiles, drones can be an interesting way to attempt to overwhelm point defense. Pack your drones with missiles instead of ramming warheads, and a drone carrier can potentially give rise to a truly immense number of missiles. Just be sure to bring reloads along, because every drone you launch in combat is a drone that's not going back in the carrier's hold. As with normal missile tactics this is still usually an all-or-nothing proposition, however, and if your opponent has enough warning that he actually needs that much point defense, the amount of PD required to stop it costs a lot less than the drones do.

Racial combat bonuses do affect fighters and drones, though the offense part of that is usually irrelevant for drones due to ramming always hitting (if you get past point-defense).

I'm working on the map right now and, um, wow, I was not expecting the random number generator to be quite that capricious. I spaced out starting locations so that everyone should have 7 or 8 systems you shouldn't have to fight much for, assuming equal expansion rates, and then I went and counted up the colonizable/breathable planets in those nearby systems. If you count Tiny as 1, Small as 2, etc. up to Huge as 5, the totals for planets in those 7 or 8 systems that are both colonizable with starting tech and breathable for your native population vary from 3 for Sirroelivan up to 22 for DarkCorax. The average is 13. I'll go edit the map to be more consistent now...

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 03:47 PM

Drones always confuse and annoy me. I don't use them out of sheer frustration.

Also, wow. The RNG is showing a bit of bias, it seems.

Astrella

2010-03-06, 03:52 PM

3? Seems like existence is conspiring against the Vendyr...

Douglas

2010-03-06, 03:56 PM

3? Seems like existence is conspiring against the Vendyr...
Yep. 1 Small, 1 Tiny. Things will be a bit different once I've edited the map and actually start the game, but that's what the RNG would have given you.

Aragehaor wasn't much better off with 5.

Aragehaor

2010-03-06, 04:22 PM

Yep. 1 Small, 1 Tiny. Things will be a bit different once I've edited the map and actually start the game, but that's what the RNG would have given you.

Aragehaor wasn't much better off with 5.

the RNG Is clearly biased agaisnt players who used to be part of a three person alliance. We must Destroy it! :smallfurious::smalltongue:

(Side-note.) Welcome MerwinSpawn.

Astrella

2010-03-06, 04:49 PM

Some useful stuff from the previous thread.

Some first turn things you should always do:
1) In research, turn off Divide Points Evenly. With this setting on, every time you finish a technology, all research points in excess of those required are completely wasted. With it off, they are instead spent on the next project in the queue.
2) In Empire Status (F11)->Ministers, scroll to the bottom and turn on AI should not make changes to the empire during a Simultaneous Game. This setting will, if you ever miss a turn, cause you to do nothing that turn, as if you had loaded the turn and hit end turn immediately. The alternative is to have the AI play your turn when you miss it, and the AI has a notable tendency to declare war on your allies, move fleets away from the warp points they were guarding, make attacks you weren't ready for yet, and in general make bad decisions in your stead that have potentially lasting effects. Even if you think you will never miss a turn, you should still turn this on as a precaution.
3) Empire Status (F11)->Empire Options, turn off Ships should clear their orders upon entering a system containing an enemy presence. The rest of the options are generally a matter of personal preference, but that one should always be off in simultaneous games. It makes a reasonable amount of sense for sequential games, where you can notice the ship with cleared orders and immediately decide what to do with it, but in simultaneous this is primarily a headache that causes your attack fleets to stop partway there just because the attack route happened to go through a warp point this turn and other such silliness. I usually turn on almost all the display options, but that's up to you.
4) Empire Status (F11)->Strategies, set your strategies to have ships break formation.

Douglas

2010-03-06, 04:57 PM

5) Spend your research points. You get 20000 bonus research points on turn 1, don't waste them.
6) Design a ship or base and have your homeworld start building it. At this point, it should be a colony ship or space yard base. Unless you have some special scheme in mind, you should probably put your homeworld on emergency build too, as this will most likely change the build time from 2 turns to 1. Note that excess construction capacity is wasted.

Douglas

2010-03-06, 05:41 PM

First turn is up!

Now I'll go and modify the site's scripting to enforce the time limit and handle one player playing multiple empires.

Aragehaor

2010-03-06, 05:43 PM

First turn is up!

Now I'll go and modify the site's scripting to enforce the time limit and handle one player playing multiple empires.

Perhaps you should link the PBW site for new players? (and me? :smalltongue:)

Douglas

2010-03-06, 05:43 PM

It's in the email I sent to everyone.

But, if you insist on having it here: http://pbw.dtdns.net/

Aragehaor

2010-03-06, 05:45 PM

It's in the email I sent to everyone.

But, if you insist on having it here: http://pbw.dtdns.net/

As a matter of fact i do. :smallwink: Thank you.

EDIT: The Falerest Legion is first and foremost! Onward to glorious Exploration and colonization!

(I uploaded first. :smalltongue:)

Astrella

2010-03-06, 06:00 PM

The Vendyr Commerce Guild shall not be left behind!

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 06:09 PM

AgentPaper

2010-03-06, 06:13 PM

Careful poking those angels, they don't like that very much.

Cevel Mercenaries operations complete.

Aragehaor

2010-03-06, 06:15 PM

*Sigh*
My capacity for failure is astounding.
It seems that the aforementioned problem I had with downloading shipsets has gotten off its coffee break and returned with a sledge hammer. I extracted the file into savedgames, but there's still this annoying little locked symbol on the freaking file...
So yeah, it's not working for me. And I have no idea why.
My plan is to poke it from different angels until it does what I ask.

if the file from the PBW Site/Email is extracted into the savegames file you should be able to play just fine.

As far as i know you dont need to open the file manually to Load it in SEIV.

Is there something im missing?

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 06:17 PM

if the file from the PBW Site/Email is extracted into the savegames file you should be able to play just fine.

As far as i know you dont need to open the file manually to Load it in SEIV.

Is there something im missing?

That's just it. I have no idea what the problem is, and my computer doesn't want to tell me. Still, I'm working on it. Though don't be suprised if I'm last to upload.

Aragehaor

2010-03-06, 06:19 PM

That's just it. I have no idea what the problem is, and my computer doesn't want to tell me. Still, I'm working on it. Though don't be suprised if I'm last to upload.

it wont let you load the save-game in SEIV? Is vista really this bad?

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 06:20 PM

Apparently. I feel the shame of scoffing at advice now.

Would just reinstalling the game (and putting it somewhere else) work for me?

Astrella

2010-03-06, 06:29 PM

Apparently. I feel the shame of scoffing at advice now.

Would just reinstalling the game (and putting it somewhere else) work for me?

Don't think you have to reinstall it. Just moving the entire space empires folder outside of program files worked for me at least.

Douglas

2010-03-06, 06:36 PM

If you're running Windows Vista or Windows 7, you want Space Empires installed somewhere outside of Program Files.

If that's not the problem, my only guess would be that you're saving the files as they are rather than extracting the contents. If you're seeing it as giantitp2_1.rar and can't get giantitp2.gam out of it, that's the problem and you need to install winrar (http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm) or some other unarchiving application to handle it.

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 07:03 PM

HAHA!!

It's working now! And I'm going about my first turn now. Thank you very much!

Douglas

2010-03-06, 07:08 PM

So which problem was it? Or did it spontaneously start working for no apparent reason?

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 07:17 PM

Cant be sure, but seeing as it was after getting winrar that it worked, I'm assuming that it was that. Thanks.
Just got each shipset, by the way. So the turn'll be up in a about ten-fifteen minutes.

I take my time.

AgentPaper

2010-03-06, 07:28 PM

Woah! looking at the PBW site again, there is now officially more douglas than non-douglas.

If you want, you could hand a couple of those empires over to other people to manage. I, for one, wouldn't mind controlling a few, just to take some of the load off of you. Just give me the handicaps you're using for each.

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 07:41 PM

Turn uploaded.

The Zishjash Guard is on the march.

Sanzh

2010-03-06, 08:22 PM

Components of the Taelkirr Assembly have reached a consensus and finished their turn.

AgentPaper

2010-03-06, 08:56 PM

Which brings us down to Crixon and merwinspawn.

Cmon! Let's have a first-day update! You can do it! :smallbiggrin:

MerwinSpawn

2010-03-06, 09:02 PM

Just got home from biking Blanket's Creek and then indulging my hunger at Chili's.
I have no idea what to do at this moment, but I will try to get my turn done before retiring for the evening.

AgentPaper

2010-03-06, 09:10 PM

Make sure to read doug's little list of things to do for the first turn on the last page.

MerwinSpawn

2010-03-06, 09:22 PM

I think I'm just gonna call Douglas.
That way he can shepherd me through the first turn; then I can study da rulez at a more leisurely pace afterwards.

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 09:32 PM

You're a lucky one, having someone on hand who can help you with the game. I first got it over a year ago, but I was so overwhelmed by it that i didn't pick it back up until I saw Maxymiuk's LP. Took me a while to learn it, as impatience is a cruel mistress. That, and the tutorial was stunningly slow moving, in my opinion.

Ilena

2010-03-06, 09:54 PM

Hey, i was out enjoying riding two horses, got my turn uploaded now though, things look awesome already! :D Lets see who gets to meet my death fleet ... i mean peaceful negotiation fleet first! :D

woot first day turn process, excellent :P

Cobalt

2010-03-06, 11:33 PM

Cmon! Let's have a first-day update!

Success, but only barely. My second turn is up, and now I'm going to sleep.

Douglas

2010-03-06, 11:35 PM

Turn 2: Colony ship colonize, homeworld build another one, end turn.

Real short.

AgentPaper

2010-03-06, 11:59 PM

Is it normal to be able to build a base space yard in one turn using emergency build rate? :smalltongue:

Douglas

2010-03-07, 12:28 AM

For those of you who I PM'd to say you forgot a certain important turn 1 checklist but had already uploaded your turns, note that it is possible to upload a new plr file to overwrite the first one. I would suggest redoing turn 2 to make sure you don't forget, as the things in that list are very important.

Aragehaor

2010-03-07, 01:46 AM

Bit of a problem. Tried ending the turn (to save it.) and it Gives me an error... Tried restarting the game and still gives me the error...

AgentPaper

2010-03-07, 02:32 AM

What's the error message?

Aragehaor

2010-03-07, 02:35 AM

What's the error?

eh-heh. i guess i forgot to write that out..

"SAVE ERROR
UNABLE TO SAVE PLAYERS CHANGES FILE (my Save game directory listed here.)"

Douglas

2010-03-07, 09:04 AM

Ilena

2010-03-07, 02:22 PM

come on Aragehaor get that problem fixed! i believe in you! :P

Aragehaor

2010-03-07, 04:37 PM

Sounds like the plr file for last turn somehow got set to read-only, which prevents the game from overwriting it for the new turn. Find your .plr file and either delete it or right-click->Properties->uncheck read-only.

Thats rather odd.., trying it now.

EDIT: Worked.

come on Aragehaor get that problem fixed! i believe in you! :P Awww, thanks that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. :smalltongue:

Cobalt

2010-03-07, 05:31 PM

Well, at least now I know I'm not the only one with computer issues.

My very boring and bland turn has been uploaded.

AgentPaper

2010-03-07, 07:26 PM

Operations complete.... *zzzzzz*

Oh well, next turn at least I'll have my first ship to order around. FOR SCIENCEMONEY!

Ilena

2010-03-07, 07:35 PM

what are you talking about your first ship, ive already got 3 colonies and 6 warships flying towards your space! :P

AgentPaper

2010-03-07, 07:36 PM

Is it normal to be able to build a base space yard in one turn using emergency build rate? :smalltongue:

:smallwink:

Cobalt

2010-03-07, 07:40 PM

By the way, when would we be opening the Council thread, if we're still planning on doing that? Would it be after the first contact between any two empires, or should we wait until there's been a large group of contacts and then have someone propose it IC in game?

Ilena

2010-03-07, 07:46 PM

Good question, im not entirely sure what would be best,

Douglas

2010-03-07, 07:47 PM

I'm not sure. How do all of you want to handle it? We could do anything from "there's an ancient mysterious device on each homeworld that allows (completely public) communication with all who have a similar device", opening the thread with full public discussion immediately, to waiting for a large group to propose it in game, or anything in between. I don't really care myself, though I suggest that if we decide to wait for lots of in game contact we should trade communication channels around as much as possible.

Ilena

2010-03-07, 07:54 PM

mhmmm, yes ... trade :P im willin to go with anything thats decided, shall the first council vote be on how the council is formed in the first place? :P

Cobalt

2010-03-07, 08:55 PM

Hmm...
I have an idea;

Someone (probably me, or maybe douglas, after making contact with multiple races) suggests that each empire join a ‘negotiation alliance’ (compare with the UN) in order to keep interactions between us more civilized. Each member would be able to enter and leave at their own discretion, and current members would meet every year to discus international issues (IC, obviously). In between the yearly meets, contact would be from one empire to another (in spoiler tags, with who you're talking to writen above it).
The only way I can see this working, though, is if we all begin trading comm. channels with each other at first contact. Not sure if that would be easy to justify fluff wise.

Any other ideas?

Aragehaor

2010-03-07, 09:19 PM

AgentPaper

2010-03-07, 09:33 PM

You could make it a rule that, upon coming in contact with another empire, you're required to immediately send any comm channels you have to them, and to send their comm channel to everyone you know. For the fluff reason, it's not hard to imagine that, no matter what the empire wants, it's impossible for them to keep knowledge of other empires secret from another empire.

Edit: Also: New turn! :smallbiggrin:

Douglas

2010-03-07, 09:47 PM

The minor races certainly won't hesitate to trade comm channels with anyone who asks, and I might have their scouts explore a lot farther than their colony ships will go.

Cobalt

2010-03-07, 10:11 PM

Should we vote on first contact comm. trading, then? It seems a bit strange to me that colony trading is out yet we're tossing about radio frequencies. But maybe that's just me.

AgentPaper

2010-03-07, 10:20 PM

Colony trading being banned fits fluff-wise because it makes sense for it to be specific to each race. A race of floating gelatin-like creatures will need entirely different technology to colonize a rock or ice planet than humans would, for example.

Douglas

2010-03-07, 10:24 PM

And we have our first major definite mistake(s), other than missing the turn 1 checklist Sirroelivan kindly quoted. I won't mention specifics unless the guilty party(ies) decide to reveal them, but at least one of them was rather severe.

Aragehaor

2010-03-07, 10:37 PM

Not first but not last the Falerest Legion pushes forward!

Cobalt

2010-03-07, 10:58 PM

The Zishjash Guard rethinks its marching patterns and tries again.

(Turn redone after due consideration taken from given advice)

Might still end up going horribly, horribly wrong, though.

Aragehaor

2010-03-08, 08:55 PM

The Falerest Legion is experiencing an odd time lapse as of late. Our experts show that we should in fact be one month in the future.

Yet, we are baffled to know why then we are stuck in the past! we can only hope the answer comes to us soon so we may avoid this in the future.
(:tongue:)

Seriously:

Douglas, it seems like your making the minor races out to be easily manipulated but i shalt not be fooled. Im on to your little game here douglas, lulling us all into a false sense of security then WHAM! MINOR RACE+DOUGLAS ATTACK! Oh ho ho ho! I will not be fooled like the others!

(Also. on buying services, Exactly how is payment going to play out? Tech payment? Resource payment? Map information payment?)

Douglas

2010-03-08, 10:21 PM

There was a glitch with processing the latest turn, due in part to me playing Dragon Age when the turn was triggered. This is why you have 3 new turn emails. The last one has the correct new turn 5. Ignore the email's claim that it is turn 7.

Edit: Correction, 4 emails. It appears the final execution didn't update the turn deadline properly. The 3rd of the 4, the one that says it's turn 7, is the actual turn 5.

Cobalt

2010-03-08, 10:38 PM

Did I open the wrong one? The turn I've opened (the one you said to) has all the things that would have happened on turn five, but the year counter says 2400.4.

Or has it been counting a turn behind this whole time and I'm just not looking up enough?

Douglas

2010-03-08, 10:44 PM

Turn 1 is date 2400.0. The in-game date is always 1 behind the turn number.

Turns out the last glitch was that the turn deadline field was set to update to the current time if not otherwise specified whenever anything in that table gets changed, so when I set the turn number back to it's proper value of 5, the turn deadline got set to that moment. The script checking for that then ran at its normal 5 minute interval, found the game was past due, and ran it again. Oops.

I have now set both the turn number to the correct value of 5 and set the turn deadline to its correct value of 2 days from now, and I have disabled that auto-update behavior so that particular glitch won't happen again.

Well, at least I have now verified that the turn deadline enforcement works.

Cobalt

2010-03-08, 10:49 PM

*facepalm*

You'd think I'd know something like that.
Apparently I can't add.

In anycase, turn uploaded.

Aragehaor

2010-03-08, 10:59 PM

Turn uploaded. (Eventful. i suppose.)

Ilena

2010-03-08, 11:18 PM

mhmm! 5 new colonies already! i hope you all are having such a good game so far? :P

Douglas

2010-03-08, 11:20 PM

Considering that it's not actually possible to have 5 colonies yet... You might want to tone down your exaggerated boasts a little.

Douglas

2010-03-08, 11:50 PM

(Also. on buying services, Exactly how is payment going to play out? Tech payment? Resource payment? Map information payment?)
Whatever you can convince me is reasonable for the service you're trying to get. If you want a minor race to attack someone the race would otherwise have no conflict with, you will have to at least outbid the income from whatever treaty the minor race has with that empire. If the minor race is out of planets to colonize, is therefore going to attack someone in an attempt to expand when its 1/5 turns colony ship gets built, and you want it to be your neighbor instead of you, the price goes down dramatically - unless your neighbor is also attempting the same thing, in which case you'll have to outbid him.

If you're trying for some other kind of deal, like trading technologies, anything that seems reasonably close to fair will probably be accepted but the minor races will value their planets very highly and absolutely refuse to compromise their home system.

You can attempt to bring down the price by threatening with a big nasty fleet ready to pounce on them, but they'll forget about it very quickly once the fleet moves elsewhere.

Aragehaor

2010-03-08, 11:59 PM

Whatever you can convince me is reasonable for the service you're trying to get. If you want a minor race to attack someone the race would otherwise have no conflict with, you will have to at least outbid the income from whatever treaty the minor race has with that empire. If the minor race is out of planets to colonize, is therefore going to attack someone in an attempt to expand when its 1/5 turns colony ship gets built, and you want it to be your neighbor instead of you, the price goes down dramatically - unless your neighbor is also attempting the same thing, in which case you'll have to outbid him.

If you're trying for some other kind of deal, like trading technologies, anything that seems reasonably close to fair will probably be accepted but the minor races will value their planets very highly and absolutely refuse to compromise their home system.

You can attempt to bring down the price by threatening with a big nasty fleet ready to pounce on them, but they'll forget about it very quickly once the fleet moves elsewhere.

Useful to know thank you douglas.

(Side note: Why do i get the feeling crixon's empire will stab me in the back at some point if i ally them?)

Ilena

2010-03-09, 09:38 AM

Lol im just starting the propaganda machine, just getting warmed up and dusted off, the innerstellar one that is, see if you make your enemy think that you only have a few ships, they may attack and hit your big fleet and be destroyed ... actually if i ally with you i probably wouldnt stab you in the back .... see you make me money which lets me get bigger ... which is a good thing :P so your success is my success and thus i WANT you to grow bigger :D

Astrella

2010-03-09, 09:43 AM

The Vendyr Commerce Guild would be glad to provide the ships required for your galaxy conquest at a modest price, Crixon. :smallwink:

Douglas

2010-03-09, 09:46 AM

Heh. I remember one competitive game where someone suggested calling the game with an allied peaceful conclusion, seeing as everyone had been at peace and allied for quite some time. Little did he know, I was just a few turns away from completing the lengthy buildup (something like 30-40 turns, I think) for my plan of launching no less than 30 star destroying ships simultaneously, using 7 warp openers to get all of them into position in a single turn. Suffice it to say that the suggestion got shot down, and I'm fairly sure that person's empire is one of the three or four that got obliterated by the 30 simultaneous supernovas.

AgentPaper

2010-03-09, 10:04 AM

Douglas

2010-03-09, 10:12 AM

AgentPaper

2010-03-09, 10:33 AM

raaaaagh...must....stay...up....until...next....tu rn...

braaains....

Ilena

2010-03-09, 12:21 PM

Hey, I was dealing with Deeply Religious races without having that trait myself (I'd taken over for a player who dropped from the game) and a 300 ships per empire cap. I had to do something to counteract the Religious advantage, and superior numbers wasn't an available option despite my massive economy that could have supported a few thousand ships.

I doubt I shall ever have such a spectacular single turn again.:smallfrown:

lol thats halarious :P but ya ... im not planning on doing anything such as this at all, nope not one bit :D (hey if i send out so many conflicting messages it will confuse all opposition to my REAL plan, muahahhahaha)

Cobalt

2010-03-09, 03:23 PM

I doubt I shall ever have such a spectacular single turn again.:smallfrown:

Hey, you never know. This game might be the one to top it.

Though highly unlikely, as you could probably steamroll us all within a year by more conventional means, and wouldn't go to the trouble.

Ilena

2010-03-09, 03:49 PM

this is also true! but not if i can help it, i dont wana be nuked! hehehe

Aragehaor

2010-03-09, 05:16 PM

If my ships have anything to say on the matter. (chances are they dont) Douglas wont be doing any such massmurdering star killing in "my" Sectors.

come on Sanzh!

Douglas

2010-03-09, 09:42 PM

New turn's been up for 3 hours, btw.
Because I know Aragehaor doesn't check his email and he hasn't played yet despite the previous post.

Aragehaor

2010-03-09, 09:46 PM

New turn's been up for 3 hours, btw.
Because I know Aragehaor doesn't check his email and he hasn't played yet despite the previous post.

The previous post was posted four hours ago. less then an hour after that post i went offline. Its hardly my fault i have other things to do!

Douglas

2010-03-09, 09:56 PM

AgentPaper

2010-03-09, 09:58 PM

Fight! Fight! Fight!
(in-game, of course)

Aragehaor

2010-03-09, 10:00 PM

Yes, well, the board doesn't keep public record of its members' offline intervals, and it said you were currently online. Without having been on and noticing your presence or absence in the interval, all I had to go on was "online now" + "expressed eagerness for new turn very recently" + "has not yet played new turn". What else was I supposed to conclude but that you hadn't checked the game's website yet and might appreciate a notice here?

Oh. i appreciate the notice really. (Otherwise i probably wouldnt of checked the PBW site until tomorrow.)

And i didnt mean to Imply that i was annoyed. Not at all, that was more of non-serious reply. I forgot the :smalltongue: though it seems.

Regardless. will upload the turn soon.

AgentPaper

2010-03-09, 10:09 PM

Aw man, you guys are no fun. :smallfrown:

:smalltongue:

Aragehaor

2010-03-09, 10:11 PM

Aw man, you guys are no fun. :smallfrown:

:smalltongue:

Im probably the only one here who doesnt intend to Start meaningless wars and/or stab allies on the back. :smalltongue:

Anyways. uploading in a minute.

EDIT: Well. Douglas probably Wouldnt either. but the rest of you? well... :smallbiggrin:

AgentPaper

2010-03-09, 10:14 PM

I don't plan to start meaningless wars!

...wait, do they count as meaningless if they're engineered solely to increase my profit margin? :smallconfused:

Aragehaor

2010-03-09, 10:20 PM

I don't plan to start meaningless wars!

...wait, do they count as meaningless if they're engineered solely to increase my profit margin? :smallconfused:

Depends on if its a Political view for normal empires, An Ethical view or a Merc View?

Cobalt

2010-03-09, 11:40 PM

Im probably the only one here who doesnt intend to Start meaningless wars and/or stab allies on the back. :smalltongue:

*shifty eyes*

(Conversation that will happen one day)

"No, no, no, ambassador; I do not in any way plan to over run your home world with my twelve cloaked fleets of awesomeness. What's that? You say you saw them coming because you invested in scanners? Well in that case..."

AgentPaper

2010-03-09, 11:42 PM

Depends on if its a Political view for normal empires, An Ethical view or a Merc View?

Ethi-what now?

Aragehaor

2010-03-10, 12:43 AM

Ethi-what now?

I see. Please walk into the Light, Thats right senator Paper.

*Button* *Followed by Hole opening in the floor Under Senator Paper.* *Leds to the Cali'jur. The Legions Best team of Educators for the unlearned.*

*they proceed to give Agentpaper a long Lesson on Ethics and him. Why he should follow the ethical moral code. And so on. For five Months.* :smalltongue:

Disclaimer: This is in no way Canonical Fluff for the Legion. By the way.

AgentPaper

2010-03-10, 12:49 AM

I see. Please walk into the Light, Thats right senator Paper.

*Button* *Followed by Hole opening in the floor Under Senator Paper.* *Leds to the Cali'jur. The Legions Best team of Educators for the unlearned.*

*they proceed to give Agentpaper a long Lesson on Ethics and him. Why he should follow the ethical moral code. And so on. For five Months.* :smalltongue:

Disclaimer: This is in no way Canonical Fluff for the Legion. By the way.

There is a very good reason why that wouldn't work. Actually, I now notice that I forgot to put in my bio, history, and culture fluff. Hmm, should I do that now, or let you all wonder? It is a rather interesting race, if I say so myself.

Edit: Odd, I got sent the file for turn 7 before the turn finished processing. Trying to donload it manually from the site got me the error: "The requested URL /giantitp2/giantitp2_7.rar was not found on this server.", and then refreshing told me the turn was now processing.

And now I have another e-mail with turn 7 again. :smalltongue:

Douglas

2010-03-10, 01:02 AM

Glitched again, I suspect due to one of the shipset files. I'll see if I can figure out why. The second of the 2 emails is the correct one.

Aragehaor

2010-03-10, 01:08 AM

There is a very good reason why that wouldn't work. Actually, I now notice that I forgot to put in my bio, history, and culture fluff. Hmm, should I do that now, or let you all wonder? It is a rather interesting race, if I say so myself.

Edit: Odd, I got sent the file for turn 7 before the turn finished processing. Trying to donload it manually from the site got me the error: "The requested URL /giantitp2/giantitp2_7.rar was not found on this server.", and then refreshing told me the turn was now processing.

And now I have another e-mail with turn 7 again. :smalltongue:

im going to assume you float. or fly.

Anyways. uploading again in a moment.

AgentPaper

2010-03-10, 01:14 AM

I'm going to assume you float. Or fly.

Anyways. Uploading again in a moment.

Oh, no, the hole definitely worked. It's the part after that didn't. And would benefit me if anything.

Also, question. I know you probably answered this before, but what happens when you have more production than it takes to make something, like a facility or ship? For example, if you have two facilities that take 1500 minerals to produce each, and a construction rate of 3000, would it still take two turns to make them both?

Douglas

2010-03-10, 01:14 AM

Ok, I think I might have figured out what went wrong and why it wasn't happening consistently. If I am correct, this problem should not happen again.

Also, question. I know you probably answered this before, but what happens when you have more production than it takes to make something, like a facility or ship? For example, if you have two facilities that take 1500 minerals to produce each, and a construction rate of 3000, would it still take two turns to make them both?
Yes, it would still take 2 turns. Excess construction capacity does not carry over to the next item in the queue.

AgentPaper

2010-03-10, 01:15 AM

Ok, I think I might have figured out what went wrong and why it wasn't happening consistently. If I am correct, this problem should not happen again.

Ah, programming. How I love thee, and hate thee, and despise you with an utter passion. :smallbiggrin:

Aragehaor

2010-03-10, 01:17 AM

Oh, no, the hole definitely worked. It's the part after that didn't. And would benefit me if anything.

Thats technically the plan. To benefit you with Knowledge of ethics and hopefully send you on your way a better man.

Mind you, my faction is in no way this peaceful.

AgentPaper

2010-03-10, 01:19 AM

Thats technically the plan. To benefit you with Knowledge of ethics and hopefully send you on your way a better man.

Mind you, my faction is in no way this peaceful.

Well, there's your problem.

Douglas

2010-03-10, 01:20 AM

Ah, programming. How I love thee, and hate thee, and despise you with an utter passion. :smallbiggrin:
It's especially annoying when the problem is in a program you have no ability to modify. The problem was that the game was starting to process the turn and then pausing indefinitely without ever finishing. I think I have determined what caused this to happen and removed that factor, but I can't be sure of that without either lots of testing or inspecting the game's source code, which only the developer has access to.

Ilena

2010-03-10, 09:19 AM

Hehe, no im peaceful, just very xenophobic ... which leads to trouble when we meet someone in space .... of course just make sure not to be inside our borders and all will be ok :P

Cobalt

2010-03-10, 12:59 PM

It's especially annoying when the problem is in a program you have no ability to modify. The problem was that the game was starting to process the turn and then pausing indefinitely without ever finishing. I think I have determined what caused this to happen and removed that factor, but I can't be sure of that without either lots of testing or inspecting the game's source code, which only the developer has access to.

Well, trial and error, live and learn and all that. Hopefully the problem goes away for good, but as long as it doesn't escalate to crashing the game or anything, I don't see it as anything more than a minor inconvenience.

But of course, that's because I'm not the one dealing with it.

Douglas

2010-03-10, 01:09 PM

Just be glad I had the foresight all those months ago to make the original script archive all the game and order files before attempting to process the turn. Without that, both of these glitches would have required waiting for every player to reupload the exact same .plr files again, taking hours or even a whole day rather than the few minutes it actually took to redo the turn with the archived files.

Ilena

2010-03-10, 01:25 PM

yay forethought!!!

The Dark Fiddler

2010-03-10, 07:07 PM

Hey-ya, just wondering if you wanted me to put this LP in the index. List keeper away! *Flies away back to secret base*

AgentPaper

2010-03-10, 09:02 PM

Hm, is it really even a LP anymore?

Aragehaor

2010-03-10, 09:13 PM

Hm, is it really even a LP anymore?
Well you see. there uh.. theres quite alot i can say on this subject and... in uh. My professional.... Opinion... thats.. very professional.. and such... clearly states...

...maybe? :smalltongue:

Douglas

2010-03-10, 09:26 PM

Well, that depends. Do we want to try the turn reports again? That didn't exactly work out as planned last time. Would eliminating the delay but allowing either keeping major secrets or including spoiler blocks the other players aren't supposed to open help? Maybe only require broad summary reports except for major events?

Ilena

2010-03-10, 09:48 PM

i would rather not give away state secrets but im fully in support of some kind of news letter or something, major events being posted there, other things, or even a 20 turn delay, but if everyone wants open turn reports i can do that, though i would recommend fleet movements be not required for obvious reasons :P

Cobalt

2010-03-11, 05:47 AM

Newsletter, eh?
That... That sounds like a good idea, actually. Didn't some of the turn reports last time have propaganda occansionally? I could see that working as something we put into turn reports. Think that'll work?

Douglas

2010-03-11, 10:45 PM

I think it's time to re-post my standard turn checklist. Here's most of what I do each turn:
1) Check the log (F10) for new colonies, messages, and anything else that needs action and doesn't show up elsewhere in the checklist. Go in order, click Go To for each one, deal with it, and bring the log back up to check for another.
1a) For new colonies, decide what it should focus on, go to the Colonies screen (F5), click Set Colony Type, select the new colony in the list, and pick something suitable. This is really just for organizational purposes and can be skipped with no game mechanics effect, but I've found it quite useful at times. Then open the colony's construction queue and add two turns of troops plus enough facilities to completely fill the planet. The facilities list usually goes like this: if first colony in system, space port; resource/research/intel facilities (just one type, depending on what you chose for that colony) until the message box pops up saying I can't add more; remove one from the queue and add a space yard to replace it. If needed, put a resupply depot somewhere in the list.
2) Hit the space bar to cycle through ships that have no orders. The vast majority of the time, all ships that are not in fleets should have orders to do something. The main reasons a ship might not have orders are that it's at a training center and is either not yet fully trained or held in reserve, and that it's guarding an important location, usually a warp point. In either case, I put it in a fleet. I also make sure the empire option is set to have "Next Ship" (which the space bar is a shortcut for) skip ships in fleets.
3) Press F7 and sort queues by construction to make sure everything is building something. If the game is at a point where resources are a concern, press F11 to check my budget first.
4) Press F8 to make sure my research queue is full enough to not waste any points. Note that any research points not spent in the turn you get them do not carry over; they are completely lost. If you have intelligence points, check those too (F9->Intelligence). Only material resources carry over between turns if not spent.
5) If you have any fleets, check each one to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to. F6 with appropriate filters helps here.
6) Save.
7) Send messages to other empires.
8) Hit end turn.

In case you haven't already noticed, you can sort the lists in the Planets, Colonies, Ships/Units, and Construction Queues screens (F3-F7) by clicking on a column's label at the top. If you want to sort by multiple columns, just click each one in turn, from least important to most. In the Colonies and Planets Screens, the Pic column works for size. For example, if I want to find a good mining planet to colonize with some newly acquired population that breathes a different atmosphere, I'd press F4, select the "Coloniz\Empty" button, click on minerals value, pic, and atmosphere column labels in that order, and scroll down. The huge planets would then be at the bottom of the correct atmosphere's section and planets with the same size and atmosphere would be sorted by minerals value.

For another example, and a major part of the reason I bother setting colony types, suppose I underestimated how much radioactives production I needed and either didn't have the time to wait for a new colony or had no planets with decent radioactives value left to colonize. I would press F5, select Value on the right, and click on the red value column label for radioactives. I would then look down the list for the highest radioactives value planet that did not have the Refining Colony type. Any refining colonies should already be doing all they can to produce radioactives and having the type set correctly means I can eliminate them from consideration at a glance. The non-refining colony closest to the top of the list is the one that would be best for converting to a refining colony to fix my shortfall. I might still skip it if, say, it had 120% minerals value, but I could also see that at a glance and quickly move on to the next one.

Important note: Always leave messages for last, and do not save after sending them. There is a known bug in simultaneous play where diplomatic messages fail to arrive for unknown reasons. The details of what triggers it are not known. The main thing that is known about this bug is that it never occurs if sending messages is the last thing you do before ending your turn, and that saving the game after sending them may have something to do with it but is not the only factor.

BTW, my usual criteria for colony types are: 110% or higher minerals value is a mining planet; 130% or higher organics value is a farming planet; 130% or higher radioactives value is a refining planet; all else is either research or intelligence. In this game intelligence is disabled, so all insufficiently high resource value planets become research colonies.

Following this list will generally ensure you don't miss the basics. Beyond that, it's all up to your decisions for what to build, what to research, what messages to send, and what orders to give your ships and fleets.

A few incidental tips for later in the game:
1) Once my empire has grown large enough that ships might actually run out of supplies just traveling within it, I look for systems that are commonly traveled through and which warp points most travel uses, build a resupply depot on a planet roughly between the warp points, and tag some fake "known" minefields so that my ships will automatically visit the resupply depot in their effort to avoid the mines on the way through. I'm not sure if there is a button for it anywhere, but you can tag a square as having a minefield by pressing ctrl+T and clicking on the location. You can remove the tag with ctrl+R and a click. The Game Menu (F2)->Options->Display Ship Movement Lines option helps determine when my set of minefield tags is sufficient.
2) If you want to build a lot of the same thing (not facilities) at many different locations, you do not have to open each queue individually. Go to the Construction Queues screen (F7). Click on the Construction Queue column label to sort by current construction, bringing idle queues to the top (you should do this anyway to make finding idle queues easier). Press and hold the shift key, then click on each queue you want to build the item at. A little green arrow will appear on the left for each queue to indicate which ones you have selected. If you click on one by mistake, click again (still with shift held down) to deselect it. When you've selected all the queues you want, release shift and click the Multi-Add button on the right. Select the item(s) you want to add, then click close. What you selected to build will be added to the end of every queue you selected.
3) Later in the game, there will come a time when you research a new facility that you want to build one of on every sufficiently large planet. Sadly, multi-add won't work for this, and you will likely have to scrap one facility on many of your planets to make room. Look in the upper right corner of the screen, right below the minimize button. You should see a column of three tiny pictures (a ship, a pair of ships, and a planet) each with arrow buttons on both sides. The arrow buttons beside the planet one will cycle through selecting every colony in your empire in alphabetical order by name. Click the right arrow once to go to the alphabetically first colony in your empire. If it needs the facility, scrap one to make room (ctrl+K) if necessary and add it to the planet's construction queue (Q). Click that arrow button again to go to the next planet, and repeat. In this way you can easily cycle through your empire with far fewer clicks than might otherwise be required and be certain of not missing any planet.

Aragehaor

2010-03-11, 11:02 PM

Very useful to have a complete "How not to accidentally mess up and fail entirely" guide. :smallwink: Thanks douglas. im going to be re-reading this list quite a lot, in an effort not to accidentally screw up and fail entirely. :smalleek:

Also. Turn uploaded.

Douglas

2010-03-12, 03:04 PM

Sanzh, you have about nine hours before the deadline.

Sanzh

2010-03-12, 06:07 PM

...Aaand turn uploaded. Sorry about the delays.

Ilena

2010-03-12, 09:16 PM

Hehehehe its going to be an interesting game, theres 12 clusters and 20 players .... i wonder if anyone has discovered anyone else yet?

Douglas

2010-03-12, 09:56 PM

Well, as of turn 9, one of you has found a minor race's scout ship. Don't worry, minor races only attack on their own initiative when attempting to expand, and they'll accept most treaty proposals automatically.

Cobalt

2010-03-12, 10:00 PM

EDIT: They don't attack? Aw...
Oh well.
*looks for an excuse for early war elseware*

Astrella

2010-03-13, 06:20 AM

Douglas

2010-03-13, 10:30 AM

Oh yeah, Aragehaor, there's a new turn. In fact, it's already down to you and Sanzh.

Aragehaor

2010-03-13, 10:38 AM

i thought i had uploaded... bah. uploading soon.

Uploaded.

Douglas

2010-03-13, 10:44 AM

i thought i had uploaded... bah. uploading soon.
If it was before about 14 hours ago, that was for last turn.

Ilena

2010-03-13, 11:55 AM

hmmmmmmmm i ownder who met the minor race ... hmmmmmmmmmmm only a 1/10 chance it was me! :P

Douglas

2010-03-13, 02:06 PM

Turn 10 is up.

Talvara

2010-03-13, 04:07 PM

I was wondering, Is there any real reason to play space empires IV against space empires V?

I find the game to have a very high learning curve so I never really got into it, Give it a good go with Space empires 5 and balance mod. but after a while I just have no clue what im doing anymore :P...

Also, are you guys gonna go ahead with that newsletter thing? I would really like to try and keep up with events in the game a little. (see it as an outsider expressing interest)

Greetings Talvara~

Astrella

2010-03-13, 04:45 PM

I prefer sprites, that's why oddly enough Space Empires IV appeals more to me then Space Empires V, at least graphicswise.

Main reason we're playing IV vs V though is that Douglas hasn't got V (yet). :smalltongue: