Space Empires IV Multiplayer game four (In Progress)

[Aragehaor]

Hello and welcome to the forth PBW game of Space Empires IV, for those of you unaware Space Empires IV (http://store.steampowered.com/app/1610/) is a 4X Grand strategy game where you create the empire of your choice and lead it to glory! (Or more likely, ruin.)

New players wanting to join need only vote and then start deciding on their empire! additional ship sets can be downloaded from here (http://www.spaceempires.net/downloads-cat-7.html)

After selecting your shipset (should you choose to use one from the link above) you merely need to locate your space empires IV folder and open the zip file, open the pictures folder, then open the races folder and put the folder in there. Then you need to actually make your empire, launch space empires IV and go to "new game" then the "players" tab, add new, and then make your empire (And then after douglas has pmed you his email address send your empire to him.)

{table=head] Confirmed Players(In no order)
Aragehaor
Crixon
Sirroelivan
Cobalt
Half_Full
Volatar
Edio
Enker
Douglas
[/table]
Votes.
{table=head] Players | Mod? | Map | Intelligence? | Alliance limit
Crixon | Carrier Battles | Large Random | No | Not voted
Cobalt | Stock | Large Indifferent | Yes | Indifferent
Volatar | Non-Vanilla | Large Unspecified | No | 2
Aragehaor | Adamant Mod | Medium Mid-Life | Indifferent | 2
Enker | Indifferent | Indifferent | Indifferent | Not voted
Edio | Stock | Large Indifferent | No | 2
Half_Full | Stock | Medium Ancient | Not voted | 2
Sirroelivan | Non-vanilla | Large-Not cluster | Indifferent | Not voted
Douglas | Not voted | Not voted | Not voted | Not voted
[/table]
Probably forgot something due to this headache, If anyone can think of an option i've left out please tell me.

We will be using(Assuming it wont be a problem for douglas(or anyone else in the game for that matter.)) Fyron's Quadrant Mod (http://fqm.spaceempires.net/help.php) so keep that in mind when voting on the map.

We will also be using 5k racial points. Keep that in mind when building your empire.

If i have gotten your vote wrong or you wish to change your vote, Please post in the thread or PM me.

If you are on the Confirmed players list but do not wish to be on it, Please post in the thread or PM me.

If you aren't on the Confirmed players list but should be(Either from joining the game or me missing your confirmation in the last thread.) Please post in the thread or PM me.

0 days remain until voting and recruitment closes. (Recruitment time might be extended, voting time will most likely not.)

A guide to creating your empire in the stock game. (http://spaceempires.net/content-1.html)


Things you should do on your first turn. courtesy of douglas.

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.

[Volatar]

Posting to get a checkmark on the thread.

[Aragehaor]

Oh. and another thing. Do we want to try the half_full's idea to try and get together (on some chat system) for a little bit of time every week or so to play turns in an effort to speed the game up? Or no?

[Astrella]

{table=head] Players | Mod? | Map | Intelligence?
Sirroelivan | Non-Vanilla | Large - Not cluster | Indifferent
[/table]

Oh, I'd also like to bring up the idea of limiting each player to only a few alliances to prevent either everyone ending up in peace of large ganging ups on people.


Oh. and another thing. Do we want to try the half_full's idea to try and get together (on some chat system) for a little bit of time every week or so to play turns in an effort to speed the game up? Or no?

Not sure if this would be that effective. At least, I know, because I'm mildly OCD-ish about this game that I take a lot of time making turns and tend to do it spread out over the turn period. (Coming up with unique names for each ship doesn't speed this up sadly. :smalltongue: )

And from my experience turns tend to take quite long as soon as you reach mid - end game. Would be willing to give it a try though. I frequent several mumble servers we could use in that case.

[Half_Full]

Not sure if this would be that effective. At least, I know, because I'm mildly OCD-ish about this game that I take a lot of time making turns and tend to do it spread out over the turn period.
And from my experience turns tend to take quite long as soon as you reach mid - end game.

SEND ARAGEHAOR YOUR SCHEDULES

It won't matter if you take 12 minutes a turn because its only really about the psychological effect that makes everyone willing to get together every week to play this game and develop an attatchment to it. So even if we only get 6 turns out of the way every week its better than doing what we have been where people log in when they feel like it and never talk to any of the other participants.

I prefer TS3

[Astrella]

I'd like to note that we've done plenty of talking in our previous game. Heck, in the second game where I was part of a big alliance there was a constant stream of emails going round discussing tactics, planning and whatnot.

And we've always had a good amount of friendly trash-talking. (Though we mostly have Crixon to thank for that. :smalltongue: )

Edit: Not that I'd mind getting together to just talk about the game while making turns, not at all.

[Volatar]

I prefer TS3

There is a server we can use (run by a friend of mine) if we decide to go to TS3 route.

[AgentPaper]

Jumping in to note that I'm up for 1v1 games using the PBW medium, hopefully still using doug's server deal to host it if that's not a problem.

[Cobalt]

I'm fine with intelligence being on, and as long as the map is set to large I'm fine with either a random mess or anything done to balance it out, mostly. Though I do prefer the more chaotic openings. (but that makes it easier for one player to win, cobalt! well, boo on you, i say! damn right it does!)
I also don't care what type the map is. Cluster, mid-life, ancient; I don't have any problems with any of them.

So you can put it to: Stock - Large Indifferent - Yes

[Aragehaor]

Oh, I'd also like to bring up the idea of limiting each player to only a few alliances to prevent either everyone ending up in peace of large ganging ups on people.



Not sure if this would be that effective. At least, I know, because I'm mildly OCD-ish about this game that I take a lot of time making turns and tend to do it spread out over the turn period. (Coming up with unique names for each ship doesn't speed this up sadly. :smalltongue: )

And from my experience turns tend to take quite long as soon as you reach mid - end game. Would be willing to give it a try though. I frequent several mumble servers we could use in that case.I can extend voting by another day or so and add the alliance limit to vote on. (1? 2? 3? 4? Unlimited?)

And i think we should give it a try, worst comes to worst its ineffective and we stop (Assuming everyone can even get to the point of getting together. that is.)


I'd like to note that we've done plenty of talking in our previous game. Heck, in the second game where I was part of a big alliance there was a constant stream of emails going round discussing tactics, planning and whatnot.

And we've always had a good amount of friendly trash-talking. (Though we mostly have Crixon to thank for that. :smalltongue: )

Edit: Not that I'd mind getting together to just talk about the game while making turns, not at all.True, though we did have Merwinspawn's excellent tactical and strategic mind to egg us on. :smalltongue:

And its Crixons fault for being the only openly hostile to everyone (but also the least warmongering) race. :smalltongue:



I'm fine with intelligence being on, and as long as the map is set to large I'm fine with either a random mess or anything done to balance it out, mostly. Though I do prefer the more chaotic openings. (but that makes it easier for one player to win, cobalt! well, boo on you, i say! damn right it does!)
I also don't care what type the map is. Cluster, mid-life, ancient; I don't have any problems with any of them.

So you can put it to: Stock - Large Indifferent - YesVotes changed.

[Volatar]

Alliance limit 2.

[Edio]

Votes.
{table=head] Players | Mod? | Map | Intelligence? | Alliance limit
Edio | Stock | Large Indifferent | No | 2
[/table]


This is my vote. The map doesn't really matter to me, just preferably not anything grid-like. Are trade alliances included or just military ones? I assume 5000 racial points? I can't wait to try playing against someone else... Bets on how many turns I last? :smallbiggrin:

Also! Half and I know someone who has a mumble server set up if you decide to use mumble.

I have a crazy schedule, so I don't really know when I would be available. I'll see what everyone else says and see if I can make it. As long as it isn't in the middle of the weekdays...

[Suicide Junkie]

I could modify a random map into one of the borderless maps for you guys if you want.

For example, the doughnut topology map - Systems at the top edge connect to systems on the bottom edge, and left connects to right.

Nobody has to be "in the corner" or have their back to a wall, because there are no corners...
Everybody gets to expand in (and be threatened on) all directions.


More far-out is the ergospherical map.
This involves making all warppoints one-way (south and east), along with the wrapping above.

That of course means that you can only attack the players to your right (or below) and can only be attacked from the left (or above).
In order to get back home, you need to travel all the way around the universe, and in order to win, you need to take territory on the right side faster than you lose territory from the left. :)

[Aragehaor]

Alliance limit 2.


This is my vote. The map doesn't really matter to me, just preferably not anything grid-like. Are trade alliances included or just military ones? I assume 5000 racial points? I can't wait to try playing against someone else... Bets on how many turns I last? :smallbiggrin:

Also! Half and I know someone who has a mumble server set up if you decide to use mumble.

I have a crazy schedule, so I don't really know when I would be available. I'll see what everyone else says and see if I can make it. As long as it isn't in the middle of the weekdays...

Assuming everyone else gives me their time periods that they are free for various days of the weeks (Thus far two have.) i'll post if its possible to get us all together or not, if it is. we'll see if its possible to get us all together with Edio. :smalltongue:

Also. votes updated.

[Douglas]

Looks like both current games are ending, so I'm up for joining this one.

[Aragehaor]

Looks like both current games are ending, so I'm up for joining this one.

Added, any votes douglas? or should i put you down as 'Indifferent' like Enker?

[Half_Full]

I am totally up for a spherical warp set to ensure map balance. I always thought it was a bit imbalanced for someone to get a sweet spot in the corner at start that kept them safe throughout the entire early game.

[Ilena]

Woot we have the great douglas back! (quick everyone run and hide douglas is back!)

But ya just for the record, im free semi mostly after work at like 6pm PST weekdays, sunday is never a day i am free and saterdays im free after 530 pm PST most days,

I also like the idea of being able to warp from corner to corner :P

[Edio]

I think a Spherical map would be quite entertaining. Spherical clusters ftw :redcloak:

[Astrella]

One more question, what are we considering an alliance? I'd propose anything trade alliance or higher counts as an alliance, that way it also prevents people from "accelerating" through resources gained via trade.

[Cobalt]

I don't care about any limit on alliances one way or the other.
details are boring.
I'm so indifferent.

Also, are we going to have any computer players to fill in the player count? Or will 9-10(still have to ask a friend of mine if they're interested- keep putting it off, but will try to later today) human-players-only be how we play? If it comes to vote, I would actually like seeing 3 or 4 random AI players just thrown in, but I guess it may depend in part on a decided map type and if we use a mod or not (what with Carrier Battles AI being so drastically difficult at higher levels).

[Volatar]

I would be ok with Neutrals but not normal AI. They are too annoying :smallannoyed:

[Half_Full]

Don't forget to send your custom race files and schedules to Douglas.

[Edio]

Don't forget to send your custom race files and schedules to Douglas.

Dropbox, did you say?

[Astrella]

Alliance limit 2.

[Half_Full]

Dropbox, did you say?

Ask douglas what he wants you to use, although I doubt it will matter to him. Any sort of file upload site.

[Douglas]

When we've got the game settings finalized, I'll PM my email address to everyone who doesn't have it and you can all email empire files to me.

[Aragehaor]

In addition, make sure you've made your empires with 5k racial points. I realize that i forgot to actually mention this in the first post and will be editing that and a few other things into it.

EDIT:

Don't forget to send your custom race files and schedules to Douglas.
Did... douglas actually volunteer at some point to see everyone schedules and see if its possible to get together for a limited time once or so a week? or are you talking about something else?

If you are and it should be obvious to me what the other thing your talking about is, i blame it on the little amount of sleep i got last night and the fact that im in a rush.

[Ilena]

So, we need to take a vote, what game? (mostly so i can start designing a race and get to douglas :P)

[Astrella]

Hm hm. Are there any mods that mainly just rebalance the stock game?

[AgentPaper]

Hm hm. Are there any mods that mainly just rebalance the stock game?

You could go SEV, which has the balance mod. It stays mostly true to the stock feel of the game, and just balances things out so most facilities/components are useful in some way or another. I don't think there's an equivalent mod for SEIV, at least not that I've seen.

[Volatar]

You could go SEV, which has the balance mod. It stays mostly true to the stock feel of the game, and just balances things out so most facilities/components are useful in some way or another. I don't think there's an equivalent mod for SEIV, at least not that I've seen.

I came here to play SEIV, not SEV. :smallannoyed:

[Astrella]

I came here to play SEIV, not SEV. :smallannoyed:

Heh, must say I agree with this.

[AgentPaper]

Honestly I don't see what the big deal is about. They're pretty much the same game. There are minor differences, but not to any of the core aspects of Space Empires that I can see.

Anyways I'm not playing so I'm not going to try and force you to play SEV or anything. It just seems strange to like one and hate the other when they're so similar.

[Volatar]

The Battle AI is dumb as a brick in SEV. Every battle, no matter the weapons, ships, or ranges, is a swirling melee at point blank range.

AI empires just do not work in SEV.

Everything is slower to work with because of the 3D stuff.

And it doesn't run on my Laptop due to the 3D (which is the end of the argument where I am concerned. Gotta actually run for me to play.)

[Aragehaor]

So, we need to take a vote, what game? (mostly so i can start designing a race and get to douglas :P) We... we just voted. stock won with three votes versus non-vanilla's two, as due to the non-vanilla voters lack of selection on a mod (rather, just showing a desire that there IS a mod) i cannot count their votes towards either of the other mods. if there was confusion on this issue those who voted on non-vanilla may put forth their desire to have another vote on the if we should use a mod or not and if so, what mod.

Said re-voting would only go on for a single day.

(and for additional clarification. would only be for those two to change their votes. everyone elses votes would remain the same.) (And for even more clarification if there is a tie if we re-vote, i will automatically change my vote to break said tie. choosing a side via flipping a quarter, in case of adamant mod being the cause of the tie i will automatically change my vote to stock to break the tie. Douglas may still vote on the mod question in addition to the two non-vanilla players in case of a re-vote as he has not voted at all.)


Hm hm. Are there any mods that mainly just rebalance the stock game?Th... this is really something you/any one else who was unhappy with the current mod choices should of been looking into before the voting ended.



That said, winning votes are as follows.
Stock, Large Random (Which is the most fair considering no one else displayed a preference.) No intelligence and a limit of two allies. (though you can still have trade agreements and general not-war with everyone else. you just can only ally your self militarily or in a partnership with two other races.)

Everyone has 2 days to make their empires and send them to douglas, unless of course a majority wishes to vote again due to confusion about mods(Or any other reason.)

In addition everyone only has one day to declare their desire for a re-vote on the mod question.


EDIT: Due to only two players giving me their schedules for me to check on if we can get together or not (Unless douglas took that over, i am still unclear on that.) I am scrapping that idea due to lack of players willing to try it.

[Ilena]

Ok, that was the kind of confirmation i was looking for :P If we are going to go stock im going to have to reremember everything bout it and such, hmmmmmmmm going to be interesting indeed! Now to plot ... do we do narn for a third time hmm? :P MUahahaahhaha ...

[Ilena]

Edit double post - huh apparently when it gives internal server error it still posts ......

[Aragehaor]

Ok, that was the kind of confirmation i was looking for :P If we are going to go stock im going to have to reremember everything bout it and such, hmmmmmmmm going to be interesting indeed! Now to plot ... do we do narn for a third time hmm? :P MUahahaahhaha ...By all means bring the narn back. we need the comic relief. :smallamused:

[Volatar]

After taking a quick look at the mod, if the choice is between Adamant Mod and stock I think I will take stock.

[Ilena]

That reminds me, if we are doing stock religious is banned outright, we are NOT having a component that lets you auto hit at any range with direct fire guns :D

[Volatar]

That reminds me, if we are doing stock religious is banned outright, we are NOT having a component that lets you auto hit at any range with direct fire guns :D

*Mashes keyboard angrily* I know nothing about stock, but I just created a race of religious fanatic chaotic good paladins. :smallfurious:

Can I please use the religious tree? I want to roleplay this!

[Ilena]

Well if you create it, we will all slaughter you because your ships can probably kill us at a 3 - 1 ratio :P But that would require a vote, i cant remember what the components name is but its the one that basicly gives guns a 100% accuracy at any range (which when your shooting out at 7 squares and have a 20% chance to hit ....... makes a big dif) But if you swore not to use the component i wouldnt be too problematic with it, cuzz otherwise i think the religious isnt too bad after that.

[Astrella]

Religious Talisman is the name. I guess we could let you use the Religious Tree, but just outright ban the use of the component.

[Volatar]

Go ahead and take a vote on the component. If you all wish for it not to be allowed I will swear not to use it.

That can't be the most OP item in the game though. Really?

[Douglas]

Sorry, but the Deeply Religious racial trait in stock is uncounterably broken. If you work out the math, it roughly triples your firepower for better than free, and gives some extra side benefits too.

If we're going to be playing stock, I'd advise everyone who wasn't here for the last stock game to wait until I dig up the race design advice info I posted and linked last time before designing your races. Stock race design is extremely unbalanced with many choices that are objectively vastly more powerful than others, to the point where race design by itself can change an even match into a curb stomp - and bad choices made in race design are impossible to correct without starting a new game.

[Ilena]

I will quite possibly redo my race about 1- 5 times again like last time, i appoligize in advance to douglas :P

[Volatar]

Sorry, but the Deeply Religious racial trait in stock is uncounterably broken. If you work out the math, it roughly triples your firepower for better than free, and gives some extra side benefits too.

If we're going to be playing stock, I'd advise everyone who wasn't here for the last stock game to wait until I dig up the race design advice info I posted and linked last time before designing your races. Stock race design is extremely unbalanced with many choices that are objectively vastly more powerful than others, to the point where race design by itself can change an even match into a curb stomp - and bad choices made in race design are impossible to correct without starting a new game.

Alright then, ignore the empire file I sent you (though I will still use the shipset I sent).

Dig that guide out :smallsmile:

[Douglas]

Go ahead and take a vote on the component. If you all wish for it not to be allowed I will swear not to use it.

That can't be the most OP item in the game though. Really?
Yes, really. Take a standard roughly optimal late game warship design - dreadnought, master computer, 4 quantum engines, solar sail 3, Combat Sensors 3, ECM 3, Stealth Armor 3, Scattering Armor 3, and the remaining space divided approximately 50-50 between phased shields 5 and Heavy mount Anti-Proton Beams 12. Call that design "Atheist". Copy it, strip out the Combat Sensors and one shield generator and add a Religious Talisman. Call this design "Fanatic". Now start up the combat simulator and pit fleets of Atheists vs Fanatics and see how the odds stack up, how many Atheists you need to beat a group of Fanatics, especially in large fleet battles. You can do this in a few minutes by starting a game with high technology start. You'll be surprised.

Now take that immense combat advantage, and note that most of the research cost is compensated for by never having to research Combat Sensors - they're redundant and made obsolete by the Talisman - and the race point cost is effectively negative because you can trash Aggressiveness rather than boosting it as is otherwise practically mandatory.

If you're really set on it, I suppose we could allow the rest of the Religious tech area while pretending that the fourth level (which grants the Talisman as its only benefit) doesn't exist, but I'd prefer not to.

[Volatar]

Alright then, no religious tree.

What to spend those points on instead... hmmm...

[Aragehaor]

After taking a quick look at the mod, if the choice is between Adamant Mod and stock I think I will take stock.Technically its a choice between Adamant,Stock, and Carrier battles.


Sorry, but the Deeply Religious racial trait in stock is uncounterably broken. If you work out the math, it roughly triples your firepower for better than free, and gives some extra side benefits too.

If we're going to be playing stock, I'd advise everyone who wasn't here for the last stock game to wait until I dig up the race design advice info I posted and linked last time before designing your races. Stock race design is extremely unbalanced with many choices that are objectively vastly more powerful than others, to the point where race design by itself can change an even match into a curb stomp - and bad choices made in race design are impossible to correct without starting a new game.
I had toyed with the idea about posting that guide you linked again in this thread, but i didnt think we'd ever be doing another stock game. :smalltongue:

Im editing the first post with a link to the guide (this is the one. i believe.) (http://spaceempires.net/content-1.html) and a quote from you.

[Volatar]

Im editing the first post with a link to the guide (this is the one. i believe.) (http://spaceempires.net/content-1.html) and a quote from you.

Oh, forgot that you could drop those stats. That will give me a LOT more points to work with :smalleek:

Yeah, gotta redo my empire.

[Aragehaor]

Oh, and by the by be sure to inform everyone of the shipset your using.


Unless you want someone to accidentally use it as well.

[Astrella]

So we've decided on stock then? No other mods worth considering?

[Volatar]

Oh, and by the by be sure to inform everyone of the shipset your using.


Unless you want someone to accidentally use it as well.

I'll be using this one: http://www.spaceempires.net/downloads-details-558-Brotherhood.html#dldetails

[Ilena]

Neat one, im of course using narn :D

[Aragehaor]

So we've decided on stock then? No other mods worth considering?
Well...

Theres Devnull mod, which i personally dont care for. aside from Devnull mod, i cant think of any other mods worth consideration.

[Cobalt]

You'd have thought that I'd have gotten tired of the Neutral shipset by now. You'd be wrong. Same as before for me; Zishjash (http://spaceempires.net/downloads-details-88-Zishjash_Guard.html#dldetails), all the way. Using the leader name/backstory in the text files that come with the download instead of naming it after myself this time, though.
Their flag really got to me. *awkward and misplaced patriotism*
Putting together the most best version of the Zishjash Guard you've ever seen to date now. Ever.

[Astrella]

Could you maybe post an overview of what the final game settings are now, Aragehaor?

Edit: Oh, and I'll be using the Nomad Guild (http://spaceempires.net/shipyards-details-24-Nomad_Guild.html) ship set.

[Aragehaor]

Could you maybe post an overview of what the final game settings are now, Aragehaor?

Edit: Oh, and I'll be using the Nomad Guild (http://spaceempires.net/shipyards-details-24-Nomad_Guild.html) ship set.


The final game setting are Stock, Large random, No intelligence. Alliance limit two.

I'll be using Phosna Botanica (http://spaceempires.net/shipyards-details-95-Phosna_Botanica.html) - assuming i dont look at it later today when finalizing my empire and suddenly decide that a race of plants is silly or something. :smalltongue:

[Ilena]

The final game setting are Stock, Large random, No intelligence. Alliance limit two.

I'll be using Phosna Botanica (http://spaceempires.net/shipyards-details-95-Phosna_Botanica.html) - assuming i dont look at it later today when finalizing my empire and suddenly decide that a race of plants is silly or something. :smalltongue:

Well someone is going to be organic :P I do have a couple of questions, what about trading? Techs and population types and so forth? Me personally id rather not have population trading.

[Douglas]

There was a suggestion to limit Trade Alliances, not just the higher level Military/Partnerships and such, and I don't think there's been much discussion of that. I, for one, am in favor of it. A big part of the reason the last stock game played out as a giant buildup with no conflict before the whole galaxy exploded in war was that even the slightest border skirmish would have meant sacrificing a LOT of lucrative trade income, so no one wanted to start a war until they were ready to carve out a big enough section of new space to compensate for that.

With the number of players we've got, this is a rather important potential limit for how it would affect the value of Political Savvy.

Population trading is ridiculously overpowered in stock, so I'd say ban it. Capture a planet and loot the inhabitants if you like, but it's up to you to deal with the pissed off former owner of that planet - who should be well aware that he's got a relatively brief window to get his revenge before your power starts skyrocketing. And please, no agreements to circumvent this by capturing one planet each and then dismissing the conflict.

Tech trading is similarly powerful but requires much more sustained effort to use fully and requires a lot more open knowledge than the game gives people to remain fair. It's fine if everyone does it, but it seems to trend towards a small number of people trading in an exclusive club nobody else even knows about, while the rest of the players don't put in the effort to do it, resulting in the trading club leapfrogging ahead while the other players shake their heads in confusion about how their enemies managed to get so much tech they have a 5-to-1 quality advantage. I suggest either banning tech trading entirely, or requiring all tech trading negotiations and deals to be conducted in public in a thread here on the forums. Which should it be?

[Volatar]

There was a suggestion to limit Trade Alliances, not just the higher level Military/Partnerships and such, and I don't think there's been much discussion of that. I, for one, am in favor of it. A big part of the reason the last stock game played out as a giant buildup with no conflict before the whole galaxy exploded in war was that even the slightest border skirmish would have meant sacrificing a LOT of lucrative trade income, so no one wanted to start a war until they were ready to carve out a big enough section of new space to compensate for that.

With the number of players we've got, this is a rather important potential limit for how it would affect the value of Political Savvy.

When I voted for 2 alliance limit, I intended for this to be a limit on trade alliances and up. Only non-agression treaties were to be infinite in my mind.


Population trading is ridiculously overpowered in stock, so I'd say ban it. Capture a planet and loot the inhabitants if you like, but it's up to you to deal with the pissed off former owner of that planet - who should be well aware that he's got a relatively brief window to get his revenge before your power starts skyrocketing. And please, no agreements to circumvent this by capturing one planet each and then dismissing the conflict.

Agreed


Tech trading is similarly powerful but requires much more sustained effort to use fully and requires a lot more open knowledge than the game gives people to remain fair. It's fine if everyone does it, but it seems to trend towards a small number of people trading in an exclusive club nobody else even knows about, while the rest of the players don't put in the effort to do it, resulting in the trading club leapfrogging ahead while the other players shake their heads in confusion about how their enemies managed to get so much tech they have a 5-to-1 quality advantage. I suggest either banning tech trading entirely, or requiring all tech trading negotiations and deals to be conducted in public in a thread here on the forums. Which should it be?

I say allow it but make it all public.

[Astrella]

There was a suggestion to limit Trade Alliances, not just the higher level Military/Partnerships and such, and I don't think there's been much discussion of that. I, for one, am in favor of it. A big part of the reason the last stock game played out as a giant buildup with no conflict before the whole galaxy exploded in war was that even the slightest border skirmish would have meant sacrificing a LOT of lucrative trade income, so no one wanted to start a war until they were ready to carve out a big enough section of new space to compensate for that.

Exactly, this is what went wrong with the last stock game, and is precisely why I suggested the alliance limit. Lets not forget it actually completely bankrupted a player once he got locked out of the trade network.

All it let too was an incredible time of building up, followed by ganging up on one player.


Tech trading is similarly powerful but requires much more sustained effort to use fully and requires a lot more open knowledge than the game gives people to remain fair. It's fine if everyone does it, but it seems to trend towards a small number of people trading in an exclusive club nobody else even knows about, while the rest of the players don't put in the effort to do it, resulting in the trading club leapfrogging ahead while the other players shake their heads in confusion about how their enemies managed to get so much tech they have a 5-to-1 quality advantage. I suggest either banning tech trading entirely, or requiring all tech trading negotiations and deals to be conducted in public in a thread here on the forums. Which should it be?

I personally would prefer no tech trading at all, but that's just me.

[AgentPaper]

Hm How would you guys feel about me taking control of a bunch of minor empires for this game? With the following allowances:

1) Will expand at a limited rate, similar to how douglas did with the minor empires.
2) Will ally with at max 1 other player, and any players that player is directly allied with.
3) Will not ally with any player allied to another minor race, even indirectly.
4) Will generally follow the wishes of their allied player, but will also make demands of their own. They're a (relatively incompetent) partner, not a subject.
5) Will intermittently attack to try and extend their borders.
5a) The attack will be short lived and against a randomly chosen nearby player.
5b) The attack will not use all of their army, just a decent chunk. I'll try to find some way to telegraph these attacks at least some of the time.


I'll also try to spark up some interesting scenarios and generally act as a sort of DM, springing surprise attacks that are larger than normal, moving ships around to intimidate, bluffing, etc. For the most part the empires will follow the above restrictions, but I reserve the right to break from them in the interests of creating a more exciting game.

The main reason I'm comfortable with volunteering to take command with this is that I can very easily just turn my control over to the AI for a few turns or even indefinitely without really messing up the game. I can also freak out less about trying to "win" the game, and just mess around and have fun with it.

[Volatar]

That sounds like a pretty cool idea AgentPaper.

[Aragehaor]

There was a suggestion to limit Trade Alliances, not just the higher level Military/Partnerships and such, and I don't think there's been much discussion of that. I, for one, am in favor of it. A big part of the reason the last stock game played out as a giant buildup with no conflict before the whole galaxy exploded in war was that even the slightest border skirmish would have meant sacrificing a LOT of lucrative trade income, so no one wanted to start a war until they were ready to carve out a big enough section of new space to compensate for that.

With the number of players we've got, this is a rather important potential limit for how it would affect the value of Political Savvy.

Population trading is ridiculously overpowered in stock, so I'd say ban it. Capture a planet and loot the inhabitants if you like, but it's up to you to deal with the pissed off former owner of that planet - who should be well aware that he's got a relatively brief window to get his revenge before your power starts skyrocketing. And please, no agreements to circumvent this by capturing one planet each and then dismissing the conflict.

Tech trading is similarly powerful but requires much more sustained effort to use fully and requires a lot more open knowledge than the game gives people to remain fair. It's fine if everyone does it, but it seems to trend towards a small number of people trading in an exclusive club nobody else even knows about, while the rest of the players don't put in the effort to do it, resulting in the trading club leapfrogging ahead while the other players shake their heads in confusion about how their enemies managed to get so much tech they have a 5-to-1 quality advantage. I suggest either banning tech trading entirely, or requiring all tech trading negotiations and deals to be conducted in public in a thread here on the forums. Which should it be?Hm, i had assumed by alliances it was military and up that would be restricted, but. im not agaisnt restricting trade alliances as well, so Revising the final setting with more details of rules at the end of this post. we'll ban population trading

And as for tech trading, I suggest the creation of a thread called the embassy, in said thread all diplomatic deals (barring tech trading, which is required to go in there.) that you are fine with being public can be roleplayed out, Similar to the landsraad - though far less... Structured? Formal?


Hm How would you guys feel about me taking control of a bunch of minor empires for this game? With the following allowances:

1) Will expand at a limited rate, similar to how douglas did with the minor empires.
2) Will ally with at max 1 other player, and any players that player is directly allied with.
3) Will not ally with any player allied to another minor race, even indirectly.
4) Will generally follow the wishes of their allied player, but will also make demands of their own. They're a (relatively incompetent) partner, not a subject.
5) Will intermittently attack to try and extend their borders.
5a) The attack will be short lived and against a randomly chosen nearby player.
5b) The attack will not use all of their army, just a decent chunk. I'll try to find some way to telegraph these attacks at least some of the time.


I'll also try to spark up some interesting scenarios and generally act as a sort of DM, springing surprise attacks that are larger than normal, moving ships around to intimidate, bluffing, etc. For the most part the empires will follow the above restrictions, but I reserve the right to break from them in the interests of creating a more exciting game.

The main reason I'm comfortable with volunteering to take command with this is that I can very easily just turn my control over to the AI for a few turns or even indefinitely without really messing up the game. I can also freak out less about trying to "win" the game, and just mess around and have fun with it.im... more or less fine with this, i dont overly care for minor races existing. but im not all that against it either.

Game settings,
Stock game,
Large Galaxy, Random.
No intelligence.
Alliance limit, 2. (This includes trade agreements and up.)


Game rules,

No Religious Tech tree.
No Population trading.
No Colony Tech trading
All tech trading must take place in the public thread.

Am i missing any?

[Astrella]

Right, just emailed Douglas my race. :smallsmile:

[Ilena]

I personally would prefer no tech trading myself, but at the very least it being on public forums is ok. As for minor races, i dont mind at all ... can they be ... influenced to do what we want in anyway? :P

[Cobalt]

I personally would prefer no tech trading myself, but at the very least it being on public forums is ok. As for minor races, i dont mind at all ... can they be ... influenced to do what we want in anyway? :P

Only if both you and said influenced minor race start on the exact opposite side of reality from myself and the rest of the Zishjash, and neither of you will ever have any possible way of reaching me, influencing me, scaring me, glaring at me, etc.

Or if AgentPaper says so, I guess. And all of the other players have their say.

But mainly, what it comes down to is, 'who do I have to kill by turn two to make sure the Narn don't pull a fast one on me?' And if that who happens to be a minor race getting friendly with the Narn, well. I can't be blamed for collateral damage to everything.

Also, the irony doesn't escape me. And I find it delicious.

[Enker]

Ok race is made and emailed to Douglas. Now a question about the alliance limit. The limit is 2 now does that mean: Myself allied with 2 others equalling a total of 3. Or just 2 players allied with each other and that's it, equalling 2.

[AgentPaper]

Actually, instead of minor races, I think I'll go with a single race, split up into many "tribes". That makes it a bit easier for me to keep them all straight instead of having to remember the physiological and mental attributes of a dozen different races. They'll still each have their unique quirks, of course. I'm going to do my best to make them as varied and different as possible, starting with giving them each a unique mode of combat. Some examples:

Fallen Star Clan
Uses almost exclusively missile-based weapons on small, fast ships. Prefers to fight in small skirmishes instead of large pitched battles.

Red Moon Clan
Prefers large, heavily armored ships with long-range guns. Ships are slow but move inevitably with their heavy defenses.

Iron Dawn Clan
Uses short range weapons and very fast ships to close in to killing range quickly, killing their foes before they can even react.

And so on. I'll have to look over the weapons in stock to figure out all the options I can use, hopefully I won't have to repeat any directly. Oh, and of course if the above clan names show up in-game don't expect them to use the tactics I just listed. (that way I can surprise you by actually using them :smallwink: )

I'll make a template race and send it to doug with a bunch of alt-names for however many other tribes. How many tribes are we going to have, anyways? Enough to fill up to the player cap of 16? How many is that?

[Aragehaor]

Ok race is made and emailed to Douglas. Now a question about the alliance limit. The limit is 2 now does that mean: Myself allied with 2 others equalling a total of 3. Or just 2 players allied with each other and that's it, equalling 2.

The former. you can have a trade agreement and up with two nations that arent you. Thus totaling three.

[AgentPaper]

Well, I've just taken a look at SEIV again to try and figure out some strategies for my various tribes, and have been reminded of just how strategically stale the stock version of the game is. I've got to say, it's pretty disheartening. I'm going to need some help to come up with more strategies than the three above for my various tribes.

Edit: Also, in the interests of keeping teams from being even more mandatory than they will most likely be, and keeping my minor empires from being completely obsolete by turn 10, I vote that tech trading be banned, or at the very least heavily restricted, for the same reasons that population trading is banned.

[Volatar]

By the way AgentPaper, how are you going to not hold the rest of us up? No offense, but in the FFA you would only do a turn every 36 hours or so, which really slowed us down :smalltongue:

[Aragehaor]

Edit: Also, in the interests of keeping teams from being even more mandatory than they will most likely be, and keeping my minor empires from being completely obsolete by turn 10, I vote that tech trading be banned, or at the very least heavily restricted, for the same reasons that population trading is banned.

Current Tally of that little vote.

2 for Public tech trading. (Volatar, Aragehaor)

2 for Banning tech trading. (Sirroelivan, Agentpaper.)


Also, has everyone finished their empires and sent them to douglas as of yet?

[AgentPaper]

By the way AgentPaper, how are you going to not hold the rest of us up? No offense, but in the FFA you would only do a turn every 36 hours or so, which really slowed us down :smalltongue:

That was later on, when my interest was pretty much gone. Earlier on I was much more prompt about it. Not that I expect we'll have turns shorter than once every 2 days regardless. Not with this number of players at least.

Still, I wouldn't mind if doug could write in some code for his site, such that if everyone but the minor races have logged their turn, then the turn will process and let the minor races just sit around doing nothing for a turn.

[Astrella]

Yeah, I'm really starting to regret us choosing for stock, sadly.

Edit: Which is why I was hoping there to be a mod that rebalances stock, making weaponry besides the main ones viable.

[Half_Full]

Voting against tech trade here, alliances are powerful enough on their own.

[Astrella]

Does Devnull actually manage to make the stock game a bit more balanced? Since I'm not looking forward that much to see everyone end up with basically the same ship designs.

(That's what made the CB game quite interesting, seeing a lot of different designs and interpretations.)

[AgentPaper]

I'm actually fooling around with a mod for CBmod right now. My main changes so far are:

- All ship sizes are available from the start. Ship construction research makes various ship hulls more efficient instead of unlocking larger sizes.

- Population has a direct 1:1 impact on the production and space yard rates of a planet.

- Space port changed to "Capital". In addition to it's normal functions, it also generates negative organics, which should be affected by population such that you basically end up with population consuming organics. If you don't have a capital then it's assumed your population fends for itself, so you don't have to feed them but you don't get anything from them either. Natural Traders racial trait removed, of course.

- Bulkheads: Cheap component that can hold supplies and cargo, and also serves well as damage control with a similar size:structure ratio to armor. Much larger than armor though so much less likely to be hit over other components.

I'm also currently in the process of changing the way weapon technologies work. There'll basically be 3 paths: Mass Driver, High Energy, and Missile. You'll start out with a standard DUC, Beam, and single-use missile rack, and get more advanced versions of them as you research the line, like gatling cannons, pulse beams, and missile launchers. Each weapon type has it's own niche, and the variants branch out to try and fill other niches. The variants aren't as good at their niche as the originals, though, so you have to choose whether to focus on one weapon system or broaden your research across multiple systems.

Another thing I'm trying to figure out is how to make it possible for a shot to "fall out" of a ship, passing harmlessly through instead of dealing it's full damage. My current idea is that I'll simply add a component with either very very high structure, or 0 structure since I think I remember that would glitch to essentially be invulnerable. Said component would be a free, zero (or very little) space-taking component. The idea behind this would be to make ships become harder to outright destroy, increasing the amount of disabled but not destroyed ships at the end of combat, especially for larger ships. This is meant to be one of the main advantages of large ships, that they are very difficult to kill. It also makes after-battle salvage ops a bigger deal.


Edit: Anyways the point of this all was, if you guys can list out specifically what you don't like about CBmod, I can make a modded version of it for us to use. (my mod is most likely going to take too long for us to use for the next game)

[Astrella]

Hmm hm. Well, the main dislike I have about Carrier Battles is the ungodly amount of time it takes to conquer a planet.

Oh, and for the damage passing through: the component would have to be at least 1kt big. Damage assignment in Space Empires is based on size of the component. The bigger the component, the larger the chance it'll be hit. Components with size 0 can't be hit, thus effectively making your ship indestructible.

[Volatar]

Hmm hm. Well, the main dislike I have about Carrier Battles is the ungodly amount of time it takes to conquer a planet.


I think the problem with that is twofold:

1) Troops (lets take basic ones for example) have a really high ammount of hitpoints relative to the ammount of damage they do. A troop with merely a guy and a rifle has 50hp and does 2 damage per combat round (IIRC). That means that you need 25 troops to kill one enemy troop each game turn. Upping the damage that the weapons do would probably fix this.
2) You can keep producing troops even while your planet is blackaded and in the process of being taken over. I had a planet with ~150 troops on it. An AI smashed my orbital fleet and the planets fighters, and dropped in ~600 troops. I then proceeded to produce troops every turn thereafter. I was able to hold the planet indefinitely, and eventually I would have been able to retake the planet just by doing that, even after the AI came by and dropped another 500 troops (it just would have taken a couple hundred game turns.). Not sure on how to fix this one.

[Astrella]

I think the problem with that is twofold:

1) Troops (lets take basic ones for example) have a really high ammount of hitpoints relative to the ammount of damage they do. A troop with merely a guy and a rifle has 50hp and does 2 damage per combat round (IIRC). That means that you need 25 troops to kill one enemy troop each game turn. Upping the damage that the weapons do would probably fix this.
2) You can keep producing troops even while your planet is blackaded and in the process of being taken over. I had a planet with ~150 troops on it. An AI smashed my orbital fleet and the planets fighters, and dropped in ~600 troops. I then proceeded to produce troops every turn thereafter. I was able to hold the planet indefinitely, and eventually I would have been able to retake the planet just by doing that, even after the AI came by and dropped another 500 troops (it just would have taken a couple hundred game turns.). Not sure on how to fix this one.

Hmm, well, preventing production if there's enemy troops would be a solution. (Besides upping the damage troops deal.)

Though, I think another difference between stock and CB considering ground combat is that CB only runs a single ground combat turn every galaxy turn, while stock runs multiple.

[AgentPaper]

Really? I thought it was only based on number of components. Ah well, no matter. Anyways, making planets easier to take would be a fairly simple change. I just need to set the planet defense modifier to -100 or whatever instead of +999. I think it might be prudent to also set the damage per populace to 1000 instead of 100, to keep at least some of the "hard to kill"-ness of planets. So your ships can rain destruction down on enemy planets, it'll just take a good amount of time to wipe out a well-populated planet.

How would you guys feel about not having to research large ship/base hulls, and the change where your production/construction rates depend on population? My reasoning for these changes:

Ship hull type should depend on what you need the ship to do, not how much research you've done. How big of a ship you can build should depend more on the size of your shipyards than how many man-hours your scientists have put in. It makes sense from a in-character point of view as well. In the vast emptiness of space, it's not any more advanced to build a huge ship than to build a small one, it's simply a matter of resources and labor.

For population, the idea is to make the game revolve more around growing your population than it does around growing your planet count. This means the game isn't nearly as completely dependent on the early expansion phase as it is now. That would still be important, but more to establish your borders and secure areas for you to expand your population to later, than to immediately start building stuff.

I would also combine this with increasing the rate of population growth to 1/month instead of 1/year, since otherwise population would grow at a rather dismal rate. I'd probably have to make population growth more expensive, or simply lock it so you can't change it.

I think I could get all of these changes done in a few hours at most, and hopefully have it all tested to be working by tomorrow or so. It's the huge changes to weapons and such that would have taken me so long.

Oh, one last thing, I've also re-balanced the vehicle sizes. Big ships are expensive to produce, such that a number of smaller ships of the same cost would beat it easily. However, larger ships take less maintenance, and due to their size are more likely to survive a battle to be repaired, so each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Most likely you'll want both: big ships to provide power, and smaller, easily replaceable ships to serve as cannon fodder for the big, hard to replace ships.

Edit: Oh, I see you meant conquer, not destroy. Yeah, I can simply increase troop damage across the board without much trouble. How's 10x damage sound?

[Astrella]

I wouldn't mind switching to CB with these changes.

Edit: I'd be interested to see where you take your entire mod idea, and wouldn't mind trying it out afterwards.

[Volatar]

I wouldn't mind switching to CB with these changes.


I also would be interested.

[Douglas]

Hmm hm. Well, the main dislike I have about Carrier Battles is the ungodly amount of time it takes to conquer a planet.
You're just not using enough troops. Capturing a planet is not something you do as a near-freebie while flying past with a single dropship, it's something you put serious resources into. Drop 5 full loads of troops from your biggest hulls and back them up with reinforcements a turn or two later and most planets will fall pretty quickly. I had something like 12000 troops built up in the CB FFA game before we stopped, and simulator results say that dropping all of those from a fleet of transports would come pretty damn close to conquering a homeworld in one turn.

The reinforcements thing can be particularly important, as every time you drop additional troops (even if it's just 1) you also trigger another round of ground combat.

Also, damage rates do go up significantly if you actually research the bigger troop sizes and weapons.


Oh, and for the damage passing through: the component would have to be at least 1kt big. Damage assignment in Space Empires is based on size of the component. The bigger the component, the larger the chance it'll be hit. Components with size 0 can't be hit, thus effectively making your ship indestructible.
It's not size that matters, but damage resistance. For components without the always-hit-first ability of stock armor, chance to be hit is proportional to hit points.

[AgentPaper]

Isn't that assuming that the planet doesn't have much or any units on it, though?

Edit: Also, is that taking into account the usage of tanks and such? I think a lot of this was about simple default troops. What about just doubling the damage of the rifle/sidearm weapons, that seem fair? Alternately, we could reduce their health to 1/2 of normal as well, to keep troop upgrades important.

[AgentPaper]

One more thing. How do you guys feel about making it so that warp points give a 40-80% penalty to direct fire attacks? The idea being to make it much harder to do combat so near a warp point, to make them less of a focal point for battles. It would be completely possible for a few small ships to slip through to harry enemy planets, but you could still blockade the warp point at least to some degree, especially against larger ships.

Alternately, if there's a way to make the game generate multiple warp points connecting each system, instead of just a single set of warp points for each connected pair of systems, then that would help serve a similar purpose, making it harder to just sit your whole army on one side of a warp-point and not have to worry about enemy ships whatsoever. If I could do this, then I'd be able to at least reduce the severity of the combat penalty for warp point battles.

[Aragehaor]

Does... should i count Agentpaper has having a vote again? Even though hes just doing minor races? i mean i counted him for the tech vote, but on whether or not to use a mod (As we already had voted and the winner was stock.) i feel as though suddenly adding him as counting on that front would be.. unfair. even more so considering he had indeed quit the game, and is now coming back only to be the minor races.



One more thing. How do you guys feel about making it so that warp points give a 40-80% penalty to direct fire attacks? The idea being to make it much harder to do combat so near a warp point, to make them less of a focal point for battles. It would be completely possible for a few small ships to slip through to harry enemy planets, but you could still blockade the warp point at least to some degree, especially against larger ships. Why would this cease to make the warppoints a choke point? both fleets would be damaged regardless of the penalty. while the attacking fleet may survive its attack, only to be attacked by both the surviving defense fleet and the fleet left in reserve for situations like this on the warppoint.

Barring that, it would be simple to set up a little defensive line around the warppoint, made of mines. and ships. or hell. just put the mines on the warppoint, unless of course the penalty applies to the mines too, in which case. Defensive line of mines and ships. the warppoint is no longer the choke point. just its immediate area.


and 'a few small ships' slipping through in carrier battles causes about as much concern as 'Theres a fly in my office.' even if said small ships were capable of bombing a planet. the planets defenses would annihilate them.

Even if a few big ships got through and tried to bombard a planet, they'd still get annihilated by planetary defenses. You need a fleet in order to take a planet. a few little ships getting through to the planets because for some reason there ISNT a choke point there isnt going to cut it, hell. even a large fleet optimized for destroying planets would likely fail. though they might happen to kill a planet or two. (Resulting in said player then constructing a choke point so it doesnt happen again.)


1) Troops (lets take basic ones for example) have a really high ammount of hitpoints relative to the ammount of damage they do. A troop with merely a guy and a rifle has 50hp and does 2 damage per combat round (IIRC). That means that you need 25 troops to kill one enemy troop each game turn. Upping the damage that the weapons do would probably fix this.
i dont see much wrong with the current damage output, maybe a minor buff. or a minor decrease in the troops hitpoints. but otherwise it seems perfectly fine, battling for control of a planet takes quite a long time. eradicating defense forces can take quite some time. barring bombardment you must either bring overwhelming force or be content to let the enemy defend effectively against your army, utilizing their knowledge of the planet to increase their defensive capabilities.

2) You can keep producing troops even while your planet is blackaded and in the process of being taken over. I had a planet with ~150 troops on it. An AI smashed my orbital fleet and the planets fighters, and dropped in ~600 troops. I then proceeded to produce troops every turn thereafter. I was able to hold the planet indefinitely, and eventually I would have been able to retake the planet just by doing that, even after the AI came by and dropped another 500 troops (it just would have taken a couple hundred game turns.). Not sure on how to fix this one.this is a considerable problem. however, you shouldn't be able to train fresh troops when your being blockaded and under attack by enemy troops. i could see you getting away with training a few disorganized citizens to help fight, but only allowing that type of unit to be constructed under blockade but nothing else is likely too much for SEIV.



Oh, I see you meant conquer, not destroy. Yeah, I can simply increase troop damage across the board without much trouble. How's 10x damage soundthats far too large a buff, it would make capturing a planet far too easy. if you want to capture a planet you need to put the resources into sizing a large assault force, most of the time multiple assault forces. if you lack the patience for that. Well, time to either A) Bombard the planet. B) Infect the planet and wait for them to die out. C) leave the planet be.



EDIT:


Edit: Also, is that taking into account the usage of tanks and such? I think a lot of this was about simple default troops. What about just doubling the damage of the rifle/sidearm weapons, that seem fair? Alternately, we could reduce their health to 1/2 of normal as well, to keep troop upgrades important. Both of those together would make the troops, i feel far too weak. One of those would be fine, though.

EDIT: Also, we'll be banning tech trading then. unless someone else votes against the ban before the game starts.




EDIT: Also. i must note. if we DO change to a mod at this point(due to popular vote outweighing everyone else.) everyone is going to have to redo their empires almost completely, which means we'll get to wait another week before we can play. :smalltongue:

[Volatar]

One more thing. How do you guys feel about making it so that warp points give a 40-80% penalty to direct fire attacks? The idea being to make it much harder to do combat so near a warp point, to make them less of a focal point for battles. It would be completely possible for a few small ships to slip through to harry enemy planets, but you could still blockade the warp point at least to some degree, especially against larger ships.

Alternately, if there's a way to make the game generate multiple warp points connecting each system, instead of just a single set of warp points for each connected pair of systems, then that would help serve a similar purpose, making it harder to just sit your whole army on one side of a warp-point and not have to worry about enemy ships whatsoever. If I could do this, then I'd be able to at least reduce the severity of the combat penalty for warp point battles.

Why the heck would you want to do that? Whats wrong with choke points?



EDIT: Also, we'll be banning tech trading then. unless someone else votes against the ban before the game starts.

I actually would like to change my vote to totally banning tech trading.



EDIT: Also. i must note. if we DO change to a mod at this point(due to popular vote outweighing everyone else.) everyone is going to have to redo their empires almost completely, which means we'll get to wait another week before we can play. :smalltongue:

I don't want to change to a mod, especially a WIP one. Lets play out this stock game, and run a test of AgentPaper's mod on the side, and maybe consider it for next game.

[Aragehaor]

Why the heck would you want to do that? Whats wrong with choke points?
I personally enjoy utilizing choke points, but Agentpaper has been pushing for us to take measures against them for quite some time.



I actually would like to change my vote to totally banning tech trading.
Psh, im the only one who actually likes tech trading. :smalltongue:



I don't want to change to a mod, especially a WIP one. Lets play out this stock game, and run a test of AgentPaper's mod on the side, and maybe consider it for next game.
Ah, thats good i had been worried that you all wanted to change to a mod this game.

[AgentPaper]

How does cutting the cost and health of normal/heavy troops in half sound? Everything else ground-combat related would stay the same, including population HP.

As for a few ships getting through not mattering, well, that's true in the normal CBmod, but with my mod population becomes much, much more important, such that losing a large amount of population from a planet can be a heavy blow, even if the planet doesn't go anywhere near dying off.

By no means does this mean it's impossible to defend the warp point, though. That's not what I was going for anyways. You just need to think about it more than, "stack my 500 dreadnought fleet onto warp point, proceed to forget warp point exists."

[Aragehaor]

How does cutting the cost and health of normal/heavy troops in half sound? Everything else ground-combat related would stay the same, including population HP.
I don't have much issue with this.

As for a few ships getting through not mattering, well, that's true in the normal CBmod, but with my mod population becomes much, much more important, such that losing a large amount of population from a planet can be a heavy blow, even if the planet doesn't go anywhere near dying off.
There's still the fact that it wouldn't kill anyone due to the planets defenses wiping it off the face of the galaxy. It could work agaisnt newly established border worlds, but otherwise...

By no means does this mean it's impossible to defend the warp point, though. That's not what I was going for anyways. You just need to think about it more than, "stack my 500 dreadnought fleet onto warp point, proceed to forget warp point exists."
Fair enough, i feel that putting an 80% direct fire penalty on it is a bit much though.

[AgentPaper]

Does anyone know why satellites are ships instead of units in CBmod? If there's not a good reason, I'll be changing them back to units so you can store them and produce more than one at a time.

[Astrella]

I don't necessarily want to change to a mod for this game, I'm just a bit peeved since I remembered how uninspired ship design in stock is, but that's ok.

[Douglas]

Does anyone know why satellites are ships instead of units in CBmod? If there's not a good reason, I'll be changing them back to units so you can store them and produce more than one at a time.
Some big reasons I know of: to make them cost maintenance, to make them spread out in the combat map instead of being a single spot whose placement can give randomness an excessive influence on battle, to avoid issues with the game's limit on satellites per square, to make them not have free limitless supplies, and to prevent drive-by extreme fortification of warp points by dropping a ton of satellites and leaving.

[AgentPaper]

Some big reasons I know of: to make them cost maintenance, to make them spread out in the combat map instead of being a single spot whose placement can give randomness an excessive influence on battle, to avoid issues with the game's limit on satellites per square, to make them not have free limitless supplies, and to prevent drive-by extreme fortification of warp points by dropping a ton of satellites and leaving.

Bah.

Well anyways, anyone want to do a 1v1 just to test out my mod and see what needs to be fixed/tweaked? I should have it to a playable state by later today. Just gunna do some single player testing to try it out.

[Suicide Junkie]

Does anyone know why satellites are ships instead of units in CBmod? If there's not a good reason, I'll be changing them back to units so you can store them and produce more than one at a time.The most important reason:
They spread out around the area (in formations even) rather than stacking up in one big pile, on the far side of the planet from where enemies are coming from.

The other reasons include:
Taking component damage (The leaky armor system makes this quite important)
They can target lots of different things at once
They're refittable
They can store excess cargo
You can use them as fighter pods
You can use them as deep space supply outposts

If you need to make lots of satellites, try building a couple BSYs first. They've got a great build rate for that, and you can set them on repeat build.
(Such BSYs are also great for building cybertroops with low orgs cost.)

Having a fleet of 20-50 SYS flying around can flood a warppoint with defense satellites in a hurry too. Particularly if you've been making use of the Ebuild rules to save up build rate in transit.

I should also note that CB already includes a maneuverability penalty at warppoints, so it is harder to dodge DF weapons.

If you want to capture planets in CB, the best way is with a surprise attack where you flood the target with troops unexpectedly. Every transport adds an extra ground combat round, so spread one troop to all your carriers and let them drop to cause havok (behind enemy lines?) and hasten their defeat.

Second to that is a bombardment to soften them up; have some PBM ships and some heavy supply tankers to keep them going. Once the planet's damage in each combat gets into the double digits, their troops are nearly gone and an invasion should be quick and easy from that point. (Just don't be faked out by fighter losses driving up the percent; wait for the second battle's result)
Even if the bombardment takes a while because it is a military base, you're getting easy kills the whole time and reinforcements will be cut off by riots unless they're bloodthirsty or masochists.

Once you really get rolling with ground invasions, you can have your transports repeat load/move(not attack, or they wait for the planet to be captured before moving on to the next order) from the nearby conquered planets with 50k troops on them. Even a tiny transport corvette can drop 300 infantry per turn if it is shuffling them from a nearby world. Get the carriers and heavy transports in on it after they've lost fighters killing the defenses, and the enemy will be drowning in troops.
Blitzkrieg!

Gotta think big :)

PS:
If you want warppoints to not be chokepoints, I've got the FTL map (http://imagemodserver.dyndns.org/other/MM/SE4/Maps/SJsFTLmap.zip) (screenshot (http://imagemodserver.dyndns.org/other/MM/SE4/Maps/FTL_map.JPG)) still:
- Each system has 12 jumppoints spread around the perimeter. Each of those warppoints leads to a single square in a "Hyperspace" system.
- Each square in hyperspace corresponds to one square on the galaxy map.
(If there is a star 3 units north on the map, it will be three moves away in hyperspace (plus two to warp in and then out))
- Hyperspace has random movement ability, so you can't blockade a system from there.

[AgentPaper]

I should also note that CB already includes a maneuverability penalty at warppoints, so it is harder to dodge DF weapons.

The problem with that is, if anything it makes blockades MORE effective. It means the defender's free shot will almost never miss. Sure the attacker's shots won't miss much either, but they'll have already lost 25% more of their fleet, so 25% more damage on the return shot is a bit lackluster. It also makes it nigh on impossible for ships to "sneak by".

[Suicide Junkie]

The problem with that is, if anything it makes blockades MORE effective. It means the defender's free shot will almost never miss. Sure the attacker's shots won't miss much either, but they'll have already lost 25% more of their fleet, so 25% more damage on the return shot is a bit lackluster. It also makes it nigh on impossible for ships to "sneak by".
If you can lose 25% of your fleet in one round of combat in CB, then you probably brought 15 frigates to a 50 battleship party.

First shot means very little in CB thanks to the leaky armor.
You'll lose a few fighters in the launch tubes, but you did armor up the assault carriers, right?
The one place where you really don't want your "naked" deep space carriers to be is at a warppoint.

Heck, I once brought 300 ships to attack 400 enemies at a warppoint. Three *turns* later, I won with 10 ships to spare because everybody else was out of ammo or crippled.
Who shoots first was the last of my worries. The key to winning that battle was a pincer move to surround his forces and prevent them from spreading out. When the lightly armored missile boats and carriers can only fall back into the guns of your ships of the line, your fleet racks up a lot of XP :)

[Astrella]

Alright, time for a update? How many people still need to send their empires / when would we be able to start playing?

[Enker]

Empire already sent to Douglas. Ready to start whenever, however currently with work my free time daily is somewhat limited. May make early turn updates a little slow and spaced out. I apologize in advance to those hoping to rip through a bunch of turns at the beginning.

[Suicide Junkie]

Did you folks still want a fancy map made up?

[Aragehaor]

Did you folks still want a fancy map made up?

I think we'll be skipping on the fancy map this time.

But i dont know, maybe everyone else wants to do it more then i thought.

Barring an influx in support for it we wont be using the fancy map this time, though its certainly possible (and indeed likely) that we'll want to use it next time.

[Ilena]

I wouldnt mind the attack from across the edge of map one, that sounds kinda cool, but maybe next time?

[Volatar]

I wouldnt mind the attack from across the edge of map one, that sounds kinda cool, but maybe next time?

Next time, not this time.

I desire a normalish map.

[Astrella]

*cough*, any progress?

[Aragehaor]

*cough*, any progress?

...Douglas? Whats up?

[Enker]

Monkey:smallbiggrin:

[Ilena]

Spawn of ...

[Douglas]

Sorry about the delay. I just PM'd my email address to the last player, and I'll look over the empire files tonight. I should have the game ready to start by the end of the week.

The vote was for a large random map, correct? I think someone also suggested using Fyron's Quadrant Mod (http://fqm.spaceempires.net/) (standard, not deluxe, only the host needs to do anything). Should I? This would result in more moons, moons with atmospheres, and many more asteroids, among other differences, but it would not reduce randomness in how many good (colonizable/breathable) planets each player gets.

Should I add random AI players, and if so what bonus setting should I give them? This is stock, so the AI has some crippling flaws compared to human players, particularly in its inability to deliberately train its forces.

[Half_Full]

Stock AI is pretty incompetent and will really only serve to slow humans players down even with the high bonus. Look at the game done by Maxymiuk,
that particular race had a 120% aptitude for all resource generation and construction. Even with a fleet numbering 1,000+ it failed horribly. Now this was literally the AI flying hundreds of ships into minefields at wormholes and it took him around 30 years(ingame) to kill it off even with the massive suicidal minefield rushes. Lets assume that AI had been told not to waste its fleet on minefields it would turn into a gridlock for the human player slowly widdling away at dreadnaught fleets with short range weapons. Its like a big **** you since you're fighting a dug in AI that will at all costs delay your expansion. Its like if you were to start in your solar system and were only allowed to colonize and build in that system until year 30 it just sucks.

[Astrella]

Wait, I remember AgentPaper wanting to take on a few neutral races? Wouldn't that work out better instead of using AI?

[Aragehaor]

Sorry about the delay. I just PM'd my email address to the last player, and I'll look over the empire files tonight. I should have the game ready to start by the end of the week.

The vote was for a large random map, correct? I think someone also suggested using Fyron's Quadrant Mod (http://fqm.spaceempires.net/) (standard, not deluxe, only the host needs to do anything). Should I? This would result in more moons, moons with atmospheres, and many more asteroids, among other differences, but it would not reduce randomness in how many good (colonizable/breathable) planets each player gets.

Should I add random AI players, and if so what bonus setting should I give them? This is stock, so the AI has some crippling flaws compared to human players, particularly in its inability to deliberately train its forces.

It was my understanding that Agentpaper was willing to do a few minor races, if he no longer wishes to do so a few AI players with a decent bonus should be acceptable.

And i personally suggest using fyrons quadrant mod.

[Volatar]

And i personally suggest using fyrons quadrant mod.

Might I ask why?

[Astrella]

Might I ask why?

More interesting maps. (It's only for the map generation.)

Look at Douglas' last post for more information.

[Volatar]

More interesting maps. (It's only for the map generation.)

Look at Douglas' last post for more information.

Doh. I read that wrong. I thought he said to NOT use that mod.

[Douglas]

I have empires from everyone except Edio, including 8 for minor races from AgentPaper. I haven't looked over them to check for reasonable parity of power yet. If anyone did not drop Cunning to the minimum, you should redo your empire to do so. Intel will be disabled in this game, so dropping that characteristic is literally free points.

If I use FQM, which quadrant type (http://fqm.spaceempires.net/help.php) should I choose? I'm thinking Paradise for reduced pointless real estate and less random disappointment at finding empty systems in exploration.

[AgentPaper]

The 8 empires I sent are all identical save for their empire/leader names. I used all of their points, but they're a far cry from optimized. Notably, I purposefully dropped all the most important stats (resource rates, construction rate, research rate) in favor of stuff like maxing out ground attack, high reproduction, and full map vision. It's surprising how many points you can eat up with mostly worthless stuff like that.

Also, was there a final word on whether tech trading would be allowed? I'm pretty much fine with it either way, but I'd like to know before the game starts.

[Douglas]

Tech trading will be banned. Direct tech trading will also be disabled by game setting.

[Astrella]

Not sure about paradise, since it removes a lot of the more interesting systems as well.

[Aragehaor]

I have empires from everyone except Edio, including 8 for minor races from AgentPaper. I haven't looked over them to check for reasonable parity of power yet. If anyone did not drop Cunning to the minimum, you should redo your empire to do so. Intel will be disabled in this game, so dropping that characteristic is literally free points.

If I use FQM, which quadrant type (http://fqm.spaceempires.net/help.php) should I choose? I'm thinking Paradise for reduced pointless real estate and less random disappointment at finding empty systems in exploration.

the point of random is that we'd pick the quadrant at random. :smalltongue:

(though i still vote for Mid-life, or Dense.)

[Astrella]

So, ehm, status update? :smallsmile:

[Douglas]

I'm checking empire designs now, and finding that a few players either did not read or did not follow the empire design advice article in rather important ways. This would cause sufficient power imbalances that I'm not willing to start the game before they're addressed, and I'm sending PMs about the particulars now.

[Half_Full]

Paradise is preferable for balance reasons.

[Astrella]

*cough* *cough*

[Douglas]

I'm still waiting for 2 (I think) people to send me updated empire files.

[Volatar]

Set a deadline.

[Edio]

I got my new EMP file in.

[Edio]

When do you think we will start?

[Edio]

Why people no talk?

[Aragehaor]

When do you think we will start?
We'll start as soon as everyone who needed to has sent douglas their updated EMP file, or when douglas gets tired of waiting for it.

Why people no talk?
Because there's little to say, we're mostly just waiting now.

[Cobalt]

Of course, while we wait we can try to explain to me how Pirates & Nomads are supposed to be played. Because I can't really figure it out on my own, it seems. I thought I understood the basics, but then I fired up a mod with them in it and lost my mind trying to do almost anything. Maybe it's because I'm so used to regular empire play, but could help be thrown my way in the form of a 'do this do that' sort of thing?

I'd state more specific problems I've run into, but the idea in general is apparently one of them. And that's a bit broad. So may be best to start from step one. Help?

[Suicide Junkie]

You definitely can't run a P or N as you would a regular empire.

Pirates, for example, need to use those civilian hulls and ambush a lot. The civvie ships have a perfect cloak for hiding as regular law-abiding citizens, the only problem will be mines.

You'll want to jump solitary ships, capture them with swashbucklers, and then either analyse for tech or scrap for cash.
Be sure to include a smuggler's hold and a SYS in your fleet so you can sell off your loot before having to pay maintenance on it.
Seeding the AI's shipping lanes with weapon destroying mines can be very useful for netting ships with lower risk. Use shield and engine destroying mines in order to get yourself weapons tech off of a military ship without taking too many casualties during the attack.

If you can support a light cruiser flagship, then you know you have become a successful kingpin of crime.


Nomads need to install the recycler node on every ship to eliminate maintenance, but can use normal hulls.
Set up base camps in sensor obscuring regions, and try to get some treaties for safe passage and trade income.

Nomads work best in a multiplayer game though.
I once ran some Nomads on PBW and purchased all the racial tech traits.
Made a killing selling maintenance-free living dreadnoughts with biocrystal armor, harmonic shields, grav drives and talisman targeting.

[Ilena]

Ok got my empire updated and sent to doug, i think we should be good now as he was probably waiting for me :S had to reinstall the comp and all that jazz.

[Douglas]

I'm still waiting on Half_Full, actually.

[Edio]

He hasn't been showing up for the last few days or so... He may be sick. Or somewhere else.

[Ilena]

Oh, woot im not holding everyone back :P

[Edio]

Yurp. He had the flu. Should be back soon.

[Ilena]

Back soon as in back soon or back in months? :P

[Aragehaor]

Back soon as in back soon or back in months? :P

Cant it be both?


More seriously, is Half_Full alright Edio? i understand he was ill(Or perhaps still is? if so i do hope he is not seriously ill.) but it has been quite some time.

[Douglas]

Half_Full actually bowed out of the game by PM a few days ago due to school taking up too much time, but I'm rather busy at the moment myself between work and hosting a few visiting family members. I should have the time to start the game this weekend, and I'm pretty sure I've got viable empires from everyone now.

[Edio]

Which is ironic because there are only 8 days left of school. :miko:

[Edio]

Which weekend?

[Edio]

Half_Full actually bowed out of the game by PM a few days ago due to school taking up too much time, but I'm rather busy at the moment myself between work and hosting a few visiting family members. I should have the time to start the game this weekend, and I'm pretty sure I've got viable empires from everyone now.

So when do you think the soonest is that we can start? Are are we going to cancel it? I just want to know so I don't keep checking everyday. :smallbiggrin:

[Aragehaor]

So when do you think the soonest is that we can start? Are are we going to cancel it? I just want to know so I don't keep checking everyday. :smallbiggrin:

I too, would like to know.

(And so would everyone else in this game i suspect. :smalltongue:)

Anything wrong, douglas?

[Volatar]

To satisfy my Space 4X itch, anyone here have AI War: Fleet Command (http://arcengames.com/w/index.php/aiwar-features) and want to play a campaign while we wait for the SEIV game to start?

[Astrella]

To satisfy my Space 4X itch, anyone here have AI War: Fleet Command (http://arcengames.com/w/index.php/aiwar-features) and want to play a campaign while we wait for the SEIV game to start?

Oooh, looks interesting.

[Volatar]

Oooh, looks interesting.

Thought it would be the kind of game this group would like :smallbiggrin:

Tip: There is a demo, and I would be perfectly ok with playing with anyone who only has the demo (I own the game and all the expansions, but due to awesome programming by the awesome guy who made the game, I can still play with demo players. All it does is place the same restrictions on me as everyone else (which is a 3 hour time limit per campaign))

[Aragehaor]

To satisfy my Space 4X itch, anyone here have AI War: Fleet Command (http://arcengames.com/w/index.php/aiwar-features) and want to play a campaign while we wait for the SEIV game to start?

Looks interesting. Can just playing the demo get me used to the game(so much as to not be completely incompetent at it?)

If so, i believe i'll mess around on the demo for awhile, then after i've gone from the 'HNNNG SO BIG'' stage to the 'Huhn, this isnt nearly as difficult as i was making it out to be.' stage. i'll be up for a game. :smalltongue: (Probably with at least the base full game.)

[Volatar]

Looks interesting. Can just playing the demo get me used to the game(so much as to not be completely incompetent at it?)


If you have played 4X and RTS games in the past, then just doing the 4 tutorials will get you up to speed enough to dive into a coop game. If you play with me you won't need to have all the grand strategy knowledge you otherwise would need, as I am an obsessive metagamer and know what most things in the game are, do, and what is needed to win. (I also have been playing the game on and off for over two years now)

Voice chat is pretty nice to have when playing for optimum communication, as well as those amusing times when I have to scream "RETREAT!!!!" after I screw up. :smalltongue:

[Aragehaor]

If you have played 4X and RTS games in the past, then just doing the 4 tutorials will get you up to speed enough to dive into a coop game. If you play with me you won't need to have all the grand strategy knowledge you otherwise would need, as I am an obsessive metagamer and know what most things in the game are, do, and what is needed to win. (I also have been playing the game on and off for over two years now)

Voice chat is pretty nice to have when playing for optimum communication, as well as those amusing times when I have to scream "RETREAT!!!!" after I screw up.
Hm, alright. I'll play a game with you (using the demo currently) once i finish the tutorials if you want.

Voice chat is pretty nice, shame my mic is broken though. :smallfrown: I'll have to use less optimal means should we play.

[Volatar]

Hm, alright. I'll play a game with you (using the demo currently) once i finish the tutorials if you want.

Voice chat is pretty nice, shame my mic is broken though. :smallfrown: I'll have to use less optimal means should we play.

Thats ok. Not everything has to be optimal at all times :smallsmile:

And awesome. Excited to play!

[Aragehaor]

Thats ok. Not everything has to be optimal at all times :smallsmile:

And awesome. Excited to play!

Incidentally, im using steam. that wont cause any problems will it?

[Volatar]

Incidentally, im using steam. that wont cause any problems will it?

Even if I wasn't also using Steam (and I am), it wouldn't cause any problems at all.

[Aragehaor]

Even if I wasn't also using Steam (and I am), it wouldn't cause any problems at all.

Sent you a PM, Volatar.

[Edio]

I might just have to look into that. :smallsmile:

[Volatar]

I might just have to look into that. :smallsmile:

Lets get some 3 (or more, I have more friends with the game running around) player coop going then :smallsmile:

[Douglas]

Let's see, I've got the following empires:
{table=head]Player|Empire
Aragehaor|The Raran Collective
Cobalt|Zishjash Guard
Crixon|Narn Regime
Edio|Eneron Collective
Enker|Cytherian Corporation
Sirroelivan|Nicassar Collective
Volatar|Brotherhood Megacorporation
AgentPaper|Assorted "clans"
Douglas|Derajil Imperium[/table]

Stock game, large Paradise FQM (http://fqm.spaceempires.net/help.php) galaxy, All Warp Points Connected, Warp points located anywhere in system, All player planets the same size, Low frequency potentially Catastrophic random events, Medium technology cost, all techs except Applied Intelligence enabled, Medium starting resources, 1 good homeworld, all scores viewable (I'd like to be able to hide some of that stuff, but people on the low end of the power curve need to know it before they get steamrolled), low starting tech, 5000 racial points, tech trading and intel projects disabled.

By player agreement, no empire may have more than 2 treaties that produce income at a time. If you want to change which 2 empires you have those treaties with, you may wait until the new treaty is accepted before breaking the old, which will result in you having 3 treaties for the space of 1 turn. Population and planet trading (but not forcible raiding) is also forbidden. No coalition victory; how you get there and how you treat your allies along the way is entirely up to you - you can form a 5-empire strategic alliance to annihilate everyone else if you want - but in the end that alliance will have to break up and only one player can be the final victor.

Does that look right to everyone? I'm working on setting things up now.

[Cobalt]

Looks great to me; I only hope that I'm not the last to upload the first turn since I'll be out the rest of the day and, most likely, all of tomorrow. In any case, can't wait, and all looks fine. And I guess that I apologize in advance if I'm the one holding up the starting turn or two. Long drives and unpacking are in my future for the next two days.

[Aragehaor]

I don't exactly remember us banning allied victory, but im more or less fine with it. The rest seems correct.

[AgentPaper]

Hm, just had a thought, what if instead of everyone having the goal of "kill everyone else", we instead had a different win condition for each player? For example, one race might have the goal of controlling some specific part of the galaxy, another might have the goal of gathering a ton of cash, another to kill as many enemy population as possible, and so on. Then, at the end of the game, whoever did the best job of fulfilling their goals wins.

These goals should be set up so that they naturally conflict with each other, and most likely you wouldn't know who had what goals. We could even have a scoring system to try and evaluate how well a goal was met, though that might be a bit tricky with more abstract goals.

Some possible goals:

Take control of your rightful land.
These would be some number of specific systems, determined before the game starts. These systems need not be very close to where you started, and may not even include your starting system. You get points for each colony you have in the system, and additional points for population on those colonies. You lose points for each colony of another empire, and for hostile (but not friendly) ships.

Death to the heretics.
At the start of the game, specific other empires are designated to be enemies of your race, for religious or other reasons. You gain points for killing ships belonging to them, and especially for killing off their population.

Keep the peace.
You start out with a lot of points, but lose them whenever other empires clash. You lose points for every ship lost in battle, and especially lose points when civilians are killed. You don't lose points for your own losses, though, so you're free to use force to keep the peace when needed.

Protect your ancestral lands.
You start the game out controlling planets in a large number of systems, but each planet is smaller and is much less powerful than a normal homeworld, for example you might have 8 planets with 2 Legacy Infrastructure facilities each, sized between tiny to medium. You gain points for controlling these systems, and lose points for any non-native colonies.

We could also reward points for how much population you have, and how happy that population is, how much resource income you have, and so on, just as general goals that everyone wants to meet.

[Douglas]

Goals that complex and varied would be way too hard to make fair, a lot of work to keep track of, and I think it's rather late to be introducing something like that anyway.

Let's see, generating a Large FQM galaxy... Ok, before I actually start this thing up, I'm not sure everyone realized how large "Large" actually is here - around 15 whole systems per player, and that's counting each of AgentPaper's 8 "minor" races as taking a full share. Medium is more like 9 or 10 per player, again counting AgentPaper's 8, and Small drops it down to about 5 per player (80 total). Next time, we should make the size vote be for a number of systems per player rather than such vague adjectives. Anyway, what does everyone want? I'll be starting tomorrow afternoon based on input received by then, and if no one says anything I'll go with the original vote of "Large".

[AgentPaper]

Yikes. I'd personally vote for "small" but I know you all were wanting a larger map, so medium seems a fair deal. 10 systems per player and 5 per clan, essentially.

As for the goals, yeah making up a whole system like that probably is too much for this game, but the basic idea of having a specific motive or goal for your empire, stated or otherwise, should help give the game a bit more complexity and depth, especially in the diplomacy department. If nothing else, it could give people a reason to fight each other that doesn't include wiping the other side out.

For example, my clans will be steadfast towards their "Ancestral Lands" type of thing, which will consist of 10 or so systems (assuming medium map) that they consider "theirs". These areas will often overlap with each other, and in total should cover something like half the map, which of course is much more than I expect any of you to allow them to have at any point.

[Cobalt]

I'm generally fine with super-huge maps, but that's usually only on my single player games, so I think I'll go for Medium, too, then. And for any game after this when we're trying something new, I'd be willing to experiment with a type of thing AgentPaper sugested with each empire specifically pursuing some goal of sorts.

[Volatar]

Medium. 15 systems per player will be a really long time before anything exciting happens.

[Ilena]

eh, i like large, but it seems its going medium :P

[AgentPaper]

Ok, so I've got two requests lined up:

One: I've scaled back the number of changes I wanted to make for my mod of Carrier Battles, focusing on re-balancing the ship sizes for all of them to be used from the start, and making population play a more central role in the game. To make sure I didn't make the game completely unbalanced or unplayable, if anyone could test it out for me a bit, just in singleplayer for now, I'd love to get your guys' opinions on how it all works.

DL Link (http://www.mediafire.com/?28f3201dma640oc)


Second: Somewhat related, I wanted to try something with the SEIV PBW system, going for a more structured setup. Basically, what I would do is play the game myself for some set of turns, setting things up so that when the real game begins, the galaxy is already set up with various established empires, mostly NPC. This would be to provide a sort of stage for the player empires to play on.

One thing I really want to do with this, is to promote roleplaying and lots of interesting interactions between the various player empires, and of course between the player empires and the NPC factions. It's essentially like having a Dungeon Master, only on a galactic scale. :smalltongue:

If any of you are interested, then the second thing you could help me out with would be to give me a write-up for the empire you would play in the game. This includes a background, the goals of your empire, and any other details you think might be relevant. Send any secret goals or other details via PM if needed.

Background: The Puyi Empire has ruled the galaxy for many years, but it's most recent Emperor, Xuan, is weak and ineffective, and some of the more powerful factions in the empire have taken the opportunity to expand their influence. To make things worse, the various Volga clans have become more and more aggressive, claiming they are fighting to take control of ancestral lands that rightly belong to them.

The Puyi is a conglomerate empire of many different races, and even more cultures, so don't worry too much about that. It is traditionally ruled by the Hannao, a bipedal race that I've vaguely based around ancient Chinese culture. Feel free to break from this culture with your empire or use some specific Chinese clan or whatever you like.

For the first round of this, I think I'm going to limit it to 4 players, but if it works then we can see about having more players for the next one, if there's enough interest.

[Douglas]

All right, the game is ready to begin. I've set the first turn's deadline for a week from now just in case of confusion or someone not getting the notice immediately, but the automatic deadline will be 48 hours per turn after that.

The server login page is here (http://pbw.dtdns.net).

The specific game page is here (http://pbw.dtdns.net/game.php?game=5).

All of you except Edio know how this works already, and I'll be sending him a PM momentarily.

2 or 3 of you had not set a password for your empire, and I took the liberty of setting it to your website password.

Let's see now, where's all that advice I posted...

Things you should do on turn 1:
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.
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.

Important bug warning:
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.

Standard turn checklist and some tips for empire management:
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. For new ships just now built, their first order is usually "go to waypoint X" which can be issued by simply pressing ctrl and a number. Setting waypoints is done either through one of the submenus of Empire Status or by pressing alt+number and clicking, and I always set a waypoint for my fleet training and gathering center.
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.

On the topic of standing armies:


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.

Summary and assessment of each technology:
This one's so long I think I'll link to it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8246859#post8246859) instead of copying.

Oh, and:
EXPAND RAPIDLY
NEVER LEAVE A CONSTRUCTION QUEUE IDLE (unless you don't have the resources for it)
FILL ALL PLANETS TO MAXIMUM CAPACITY WITH FACILITIES

[AgentPaper]

To make things clear, the DM'ed game I was proposing above wasn't something I was going to try and start any time soon. More likely, it'd happen once this game is done, or at least it's far enough along that most or all of my clans have been killed off, and probably a few of the players as well. The people who propose the empire ideas don't even need to be the ones who ultimately play them, I just wanted to get a few ideas rolling around so I could build on them and work them into the overall story of the galaxy.

[Ilena]

Ah look our first upload of the day ...

[AgentPaper]

First turn done. x8


...so much clicking... The rest of the turns should be relatively painless compared to this one, even when the empires start getting large, just because of all the hundred little quality of life things I had to take care of on the first turn. Marking out all the do no enter systems alone had to be 1000+ clicks, not including all the mis-clicks. :smalltongue:

[Volatar]

Alright! Glad to see this get going finally :smallsmile:

[Suicide Junkie]

If you want an instant army with less waiting, you can mothball all the newly constructed ships at your training world.
For an instant fee of 20% of the build cost, your fleet will be ready for action on the next turn. (Plus training time where applicable)
You can retrofit while mothballed to keep them up to date as well.

Just be sure that you maintain a VERY large resource stockpile in the bank for those activations. Stock resource storage facilities really suck, but you need the cash for unmothballing up front.

Also, you will need to have an early warning network; if an enemy scout ship flies in to your mothball yard, it can kill everything without them fighting back or even raising shields.

[Douglas]

Turn 2 is ready, after manual processing to reset a forgotten password. Future turns should process automatically.

Everyone, you have 48 hours to play.

[Douglas]

Oh yeah, Aragehaor never checks his email and might not be back in the habit of checking periodically, so: turn 3 is up, with about a day left before the deadline.

The Derajil expansion machinery is in motion. In just one more month (turn), we will have *gasp* gone through a warp point to explore beyond the home system! Yeah, early turns are boring, but they're also very simple and easy to play quickly.

BTW, I was amused when I checked everyone's empire designs a while back when I noticed that apparently my use of Organic Manipulation in game 2 made an impression - 4 or 5 empires have that trait this time.

[AgentPaper]

Yeah, fortunately I had the foresight of getting ancient race for all of my clans, so after marking all non-clan territory as "Systems to Avoid", all I have to do to colonize is send my colony ship to the largest breathable planet that doesn't already have a ship headed for it.

[Volatar]

I never check my email either, but I have the game status page in a pinned tab and check it a couple of times a day.

[Aragehaor]

Oh yeah, Aragehaor never checks his email and might not be back in the habit of checking periodically, so: turn 3 is up, with about a day left before the deadline.

The Derajil expansion machinery is in motion. In just one more month (turn), we will have *gasp* gone through a warp point to explore beyond the home system! Yeah, early turns are boring, but they're also very simple and easy to play quickly.

BTW, I was amused when I checked everyone's empire designs a while back when I noticed that apparently my use of Organic Manipulation in game 2 made an impression - 4 or 5 empires have that trait this time.
Oh - come on. Everyones an organic race now? :smallannoyed: can i change my race? :smalltongue:

[Volatar]

Oh - come on. Everyones an organic race now? :smallannoyed: can i change my race? :smalltongue:

I am not an organic race. Those are lame. Metal is superior! :smalltongue:

[Ilena]

Lol thats quite a few considering how many players we have .......

[Douglas]

Turn 4 is up, and I am disappointed by the new system.

[Volatar]

Turn 4 is up, and I am disappointed by the new system.

New system? :smallconfused:

[Douglas]

The one I just explored.

[Edio]

I’ve gotten that the ships don’t move until the turn is processed, but what about warping into an unexplored system? If the ship doesn’t move until the end, how are you supposed to use the rest of the movement points? Or can you not? For instance, one of my ships was warping to a point right next to the planet it was constructed on, but since it doesn’t move, it won’t have access to move in the system it was warping into until the next turn, a waste of movement points. Is there a way around this or is it just something to live with?

[Douglas]

You can guess (usually it's pretty easy) which system the warp point leads to and, after issuing the warp order, issue an order to move to some location in that system, but you'll be giving the order blind. Note that the warp order must be present, you can't just skip straight to moving to some spot in the unexplored system - if the move order is at the front of the queue and the system isn't explored yet, the game will clear the order instead of following it because your empire does not officially know any possible route to the designated location yet.

[Volatar]

I took Ancient Race this time around specifically to avoid that particular annoyance. :smallwink:

[Ilena]

hmmm partnership with volator ....... gotcha :D

[Douglas]

A second new system explored and... :smallfrown:

Oh well, I guess having a few places to put space yards is better than nothing.

[Volatar]

Did you not take Ancient Race douglas?

[Cobalt]

Probably put more points into stats, the monster of a min-maxer. Stats and other stats.

You and your stats. Just because they'll win you the game you think they're so cool. Well news time; they are. So: there's your confirmation.

Wait, what was I saying?

[Douglas]

Yes, let's all make (stats) fun of my min-maxing (stats) habits. Such a (stats) fun game (stats), I can't see (stats) how I (stats) ever (stats) got through (stats) life (stats stats) without (stats) it. stats stats stats stats stats stats stats stats:smalltongue:

But seriously, that actually is reasonably accurate. Stats, stats, and racial traits. I had some difficulty scrounging up enough points for the positive stats and advanced traits I wanted, finding another 1000 for Ancient Race just wasn't going to happen.

[Volatar]

Yes, let's all make (stats) fun of my min-maxing (stats) habits. Such a (stats) fun game (stats), I can't see (stats) how I (stats) ever (stats) got through (stats) life (stats stats) without (stats) it. stats stats stats stats stats stats stats stats:smalltongue:

But seriously, that actually is reasonably accurate. Stats, stats, and racial traits. I had some difficulty scrounging up enough points for the positive stats and advanced traits I wanted, finding another 1000 for Ancient Race just wasn't going to happen.

Fair enough. You are basically trading away early game positioning and expansion for late game power with that.

[Douglas]

We'll see how much I'm actually giving up when competing colonization efforts finally run into each other. I'm pretty sure I still haven't seen any of you match my early and mid game expansion rate, Ancient Race or not.

[Edio]

So who got the corners? :3

[Douglas]

I have no idea. I'm fairly close to one of the edges, I think, but not near a corner.

Having a corner position would be a mixed blessing, I think. Probably less total room to expand before encountering neighbors, but also fewer neighbors and shorter borders to defend against, so you can focus your efforts more.

Volatar (or AgentPaper) could, if he were so inclined, find out where all the homeworlds are by sorting the planets (F4) screen by value and size (use the picture column) and looking for the precisely 16 (though it's possible but unlikely that 1 more exists by random coincidence) planets that are large size and have all three values in the 115-125% range, but even that doesn't reveal which homeworld belongs to which empire.

[Volatar]

I have no idea. I'm fairly close to one of the edges, I think, but not near a corner.

Having a corner position would be a mixed blessing, I think. Probably less total room to expand before encountering neighbors, but also fewer neighbors and shorter borders to defend against, so you can focus your efforts more.

Volatar (or AgentPaper) could, if he were so inclined, find out where all the homeworlds are by sorting the planets (F4) screen by value and size (use the picture column) and looking for the precisely 16 (though it's possible but unlikely that 1 more exists by random coincidence) planets that are large size and have all three values in the 115-125% range, but even that doesn't reveal which homeworld belongs to which empire.

I could do that, sure.

But why should I share that important intel? :smallbiggrin:

[Douglas]

Aragehaor, Enker, and AgentPaper, less than 12 hours remain to the deadline.

Edit: And Aragehaor missed the turn.

[Aragehaor]

Aragehaor, Enker, and AgentPaper, less than 12 hours remain to the deadline.

Edit: And Aragehaor missed the turn.

Sorry, My internet had gone out and i had no way of uploading the turn.


EDIT: Im going to be gone for around three days starting friday, will likely miss a turn.

[Edio]

So how about your tribal grounds, AgentPaper, old bean?

[AgentPaper]

So how about your tribal grounds, AgentPaper, old bean?

Hm, yeah, those should probably be well known, shouldn't they?

First off, could everyone send me a PM with the system their home planet is in, to avoid accidentally claiming one? And second, how much of the galaxy should be claimed by the tribes? Right now I've got 16 systems per tribe, but even with all the overlap, that's starting to seem like it might be too much. For reference, I think something like 1/3-1/2 of the systems are claimed by one or more tribes.

[Douglas]

Well, they do account for half of the game's empires, so attempting to claim half the galaxy for them seems reasonable. Sure, it'll lead to some players running up against their borders and feeling cramped, but that'll just give extra incentive to fight over it.

[Ilena]

the Narn do not reconize these "tribes" and their "borders" we go where we please in what space we please

[Douglas]

Volatar, the turn's waiting on just you.

[Volatar]

Volatar, the turn's waiting on just you.

I just discovered this fact about 5 minutes ago.

Kinda distracted by the current LoL game at Dreamhack, but I'll get right on it.

[Cobalt]

Gah! Virus, in my laptop! Total crash! Critical error!

Getting it back on Tuesday, they say, but I'll try to get SEIV on what I'm using right now for the turn or two that'll happen between now and then. No need to panic- the Zishjash Guard is still fully prepared for galactic conquest and is not dead or dying at all.

Also! If I could be relinked to the PBW sub site, as I skimmed the thread and was unable to spot it and my only link was on my laptop's hot bar.

[Volatar]

Also! If I could be relinked to the PBW sub site, as I skimmed the thread and was unable to spot it and my only link was on my laptop's hot bar.

http://pbw.dtdns.net/game.php?game=5

[Edio]

Be warned, primitive natives of the Shining Nebula Clan! Stay your foul, diseased, bodies away from our space! :smallbiggrin:

[Cobalt]

http://pbw.dtdns.net/game.php?game=5

Thank you kindly. *uploads turn*


And a strange/good thing to cancel out my last post completely; they apparently fixed everything that was wrong with my laptop (and told me that I was the first to come in with that much wrong all at once) in a matter of hours, despite foreseeing it as taking till Tuesday. No complaints here. So- no chance of missing any turns anymore, and still no need to panic.

[Volatar]

Thank you kindly. *uploads turn*


And a strange/good thing to cancel out my last post completely; they apparently fixed everything that was wrong with my laptop (and told me that I was the first to come in with that much wrong all at once) in a matter of hours, despite foreseeing it as taking till Tuesday. No complaints here. So- no chance of missing any turns anymore, and still no need to panic.

In the future just give me a call. No need to pay money :)

[Douglas]

Turn 9 is up and ready, Aragehaor.

Those of you with many ships and few planets (*cough* Crixon *cough*) as revealed by the scores screen might want to start changing that soon - before you either fall behind in the colonization race or end up with too many undeveloped colonies at once for your homeworld to fund developing them all. Trying to push the initial border out, if that's what you're doing, is a good idea, but only to a point.

[Ilena]

oh great way to actually post but lag telling me so when i stop it i dont realize its already posted :S gar

[Ilena]

lol way ahead of you douglas :P Just found crap all for even decent worlds, so im basicly takin the best of the crap that ive found :S not even a medium breathable.

[AgentPaper]

*Sees planet named "Zishjash" while looking for homeworlds*

Hmm, I wonder who could possibly live there?

*sends giant armada*

Anyways, after finding out where everyone is (fortunately there were exactly 16 planets that met the conditions for a homeworld) I've revised which clans claim which systems a bit, to hopefully keep a few people from being shafted. The way things were before, I'd actually claimed almost half of everyone's homeworlds, and one in particular was so deep in clan territory that they would need to travel through 6 systems just to get to the nearest non-clan system (including their home system).

Anyways, here's the final list as I have it:

Black Hole Clan:

Fjardhundra
Ghlassglu
Go
Helga
Iczod
Katharina
Koan
Nim-ghen
Resdu
Shleiden
Tacu
Urhri
Vayrui
Xrenresen
Yimum
Ywain


Blazing Star Clan:

Clamr
Fefedshu
Idwiao
Inncorrais
Itaqui
Lambda Sco
Olouz
Persorion
Pi'Uqwi
Rasbokil
Sayama
Shror
Soxocaz
Tarella
Thraen
Tirane


Fallen Star Clan:

Bambag
Belorphyn
Da'Eheva
Ellensburg
Ghophuksu
Phirlre
Pi'Uqwi
Rasbokil
Setlii
Thraen
Vrid-jriui
Yilis


Iron Dawn Clan

Creechee
Da'Eheva
Duxe
Ghophuksu
Lares
Miyama
Nitok
Orithakuk
Rhlo'fa
Shwabhausen
Taylisori
Yeaz
Yudko
Zashi


Mighty Quasar Clan

Bambui
Davida
Fefedshu
Ghovu
Inncorrais
Oet
Shror
Sloldor
Saxocazz
Stonn
Suddetoo
Tirane
Utoban
Vsekhsvyatskij


Red Moon Clan

Da'Utva
Duxe
Pahlavi
Rubaranda
Shluuawoda
Storm
Thunderchild
Uzluumar
Xeei
Yudko


Shining Nebula Clan

Da'Laig
Gorodnitskij
Helga
Idultzad
Jegraa
Koan
Ord'Tiddel
Pi'Gouq
Rezu
Taku
Thutkeiet
Vizbor
Xrenresen


Twisting Galaxy Clan

Duxe
Gramme
Lares
Miyama
Rhlo'fa
Yalwalin
Yeaz
Yizgheksuk
Zashi
Zeet


Man that took way too long.

[Douglas]

Turn 10 is up.

Research continues. Slowly.

Friggin' 100000 research point cost to get something as basic as TROOPS. Launching something into space, shooting guided nuclear missiles that never miss with range several times the diameter of a planet, going on interstellar voyages, we've got that down pat. Easy stuff. But sticking a sidearm on a soldier to parade around on a planetary surface? No, never considered that before, where'd you come up with such a crazy idea?

Also, where the heck did all the planets matching my home planet type above size tiny (and the occasional small) go? And just forget about breathable... I got one lucky planet in my home system, but the pickings elsewhere have been rather slim so far.

[Cobalt]

*Sees planet named "Zishjash" while looking for homeworlds*

Hmm, I wonder who could possibly live there?

*sends giant armada*

Ah ha! You've found my decoy world, eh? Little did you know that there is a star destroyer in that very system, just waiting for the ships foolish enough to all charge in at one time to conquer it. The only possible counter, to this master strategy, is-

*single ship warps in, system explodes into nebulae*

*300 Dreadnaughts fly in and pass into non-decoy homesystem*

...Oh. Well, crud, that didn't work out as well as I was hoping it would.

I give up!


Friggin' 100000 research point cost to get something as basic as TROOPS. Launching something into space, shooting guided nuclear missiles that never miss with range several times the diameter of a planet, going on interstellar voyages, we've got that down pat. Easy stuff. But sticking a sidearm on a soldier to parade around on a planetary surface? No, never considered that before, where'd you come up with such a crazy idea?

Clearly, the Director took command of his homeworld with a rousing speech.


Also, where the heck did all the planets matching my home planet type above size tiny (and the occasional small) go? And just forget about breathable... I got one lucky planet in my home system, but the pickings elsewhere have been rather slim so far.

I'm having similar rewards for my scouting around. I've grabbed a few airless rocks as my own (my atmoshpere type=none) but even if I had some other air chosen as my lung's best fit, I'd still only be getting small and medium-sized goodies. And this doesn't even count in their resource values... Hm...

*makes note of derajil weakness, charges laser cannons*

[Aragehaor]

Turn 9 is up and ready, Aragehaor.

Those of you with many ships and few planets (*cough* Crixon *cough*) as revealed by the scores screen might want to start changing that soon - before you either fall behind in the colonization race or end up with too many undeveloped colonies at once for your homeworld to fund developing them all. Trying to push the initial border out, if that's what you're doing, is a good idea, but only to a point.

Wasn't actually here, was on a trip (Which i actually told everyone in a roundabout way such as an edit. It seemed like a good idea at the time!) Anyways! time to see what the damage I've caused myself by doing silly things like going on 'trips' to see 'family' :smalltongue:

[Ilena]

I know right? I go into a system that appears to be a minor races homeworld .... i find a breatheable to both of us ...... large world ..... i say its the minor races faults, they stole all our good worlds ... all ... 1

[Douglas]

Wasn't actually here, was on a trip (Which i actually told everyone in a roundabout way such as an edit. It seemed like a good idea at the time!) Anyways! time to see what the damage I've caused myself by doing silly things like going on 'trips' to see 'family' :smalltongue:
I saw that, actually, I just forgot about it until after I posted.


I know right? I go into a system that appears to be a minor races homeworld .... i find a breatheable to both of us ...... large world ..... i say its the minor races faults, they stole all our good worlds ... all ... 1
Soooo, genocidal war against the minors?

[Volatar]

Soooo, genocidal war against the minors?

That's pretty much the plan. :smallwink:

Also, met my first other race today.

[Cobalt]

Soooo, genocidal war against the minors?

My favorite part.

[Ilena]

Soooo, genocidal war against the minors?


Sounds good!

[Douglas]

Volatar and AgentPaper, deadline's in about 5 and a half hours.

[Volatar]

Volatar and AgentPaper, deadline's in about 5 and a half hours.

Flip, this game moves fast.

EDIT: Oops. Looks like I did that turn and forgot to upload it when I did. Sorry.

[Douglas]

Turn 11 is up.

Did someone's homeworld get blockaded? There's a rather precipitous drop in the scores screen, and a non-zero combat log.

[Aragehaor]

Turn 11 is up.

Did someone's homeworld get blockaded? There's a rather precipitous drop in the scores screen, and a non-zero combat log.

Apparently AgentPapers minor race decided to forgo any chance of peace and just blockade my homeworld(With a colony ship i assumed was traveling through my system to another system to colonize.) for little discernible reason. :smallconfused: (we even had decently peaceful relations thus far.)

[Cobalt]

That's...

...That's actually kind of cheap. To me.

A colony ship? Really? At least put a gun on board. And shoot at each other.

[Douglas]

You share both planet type and atmosphere with him and he's got Ancient Race. Maybe he just saw "large breathable" on his map and sent a ship to colonize it before checking for homeworlds, and then didn't realize he'd done it when he did look for homeworlds.

[Cobalt]

"This planet's almost too good to be true," is how I'd like to imagine what happened.

[Aragehaor]

You share both planet type and atmosphere with him and he's got Ancient Race. Maybe he just saw "large breathable" on his map and sent a ship to colonize it before checking for homeworlds, and then didn't realize he'd done it when he did look for homeworlds. Considering the planet's name is 'Raran' And my faction is called 'The Raran Collective' i find that somewhat unlikely. though possible, i suppose.

[AgentPaper]

Haha, yeah that's exactly what happened, actually. See, how I've been managing colonization is just to sort my of empty breathables by size, with all non-clan territory marked as "Do Not Enter". Then, I simply send colony ships to the planet at the bottom of the list one after another. (that's the biggest one) Since it's something I do en-masse, I don't really check the names. I've got all the homeworlds marked out of territory now, and I just assumed the ones heading out of territory would stop. I caught a few that were trying to go out of clan territory, but apparently not all of them. :smalltongue:

Anyways, depending on how big a setback this actually is, I'm fine with turning back the clock a bit to avoid it. Also, I should note that if I do accidentally colonize out of territory, just tell me about it and I'll abandon the planet promptly. Don't attack it, though, just let them leave peacefully, unless you're looking for war.

[Aragehaor]

Haha, yeah that's exactly what happened, actually. See, how I've been managing colonization is just to sort my of empty breathables by size, with all non-clan territory marked as "Do Not Enter". Then, I simply send colony ships to the planet at the bottom of the list one after another. (that's the biggest one) Since it's something I do en-masse, I don't really check the names. I've got all the homeworlds marked out of territory now, and I just assumed the ones heading out of territory would stop. I caught a few that were trying to go out of clan territory, but apparently not all of them. :smalltongue:

Anyways, depending on how big a setback this actually is, I'm fine with turning back the clock a bit to avoid it. Also, I should note that if I do accidentally colonize out of territory, just tell me about it and I'll abandon the planet promptly. Don't attack it, though, just let them leave peacefully, unless you're looking for war.Gwalior (unless im really wrong) is if i remember colonized by the iron dawn clan. and you don't have that listed as part of their territory.

As for the turnback, i am unsure if the blockade could do enough damage in the short time to be worth it. We could (unless the damage actually is that bad) just ignore this and i'll replay my turn and take back my threats.

[AgentPaper]

Gwalior (unless im really wrong) is if i remember colonized by the iron dawn clan. and you don't have that listed as part of their territory.

As for the turnback, i am unsure if the blockade could do enough damage in the short time to be worth it. We could (unless the damage actually is that bad) just ignore this and i'll replay my turn and take back my threats.

Now wait a second! No need to be so drastic! Just because it came as a result of something like this doesn't mean it should be taken back right away!

Conflict and misunderstandings between nations should be fed and nurtured, not resolved peacefully! Think of the war children!

[Douglas]

Provided the colony ship moves away immediately, the only loss would be one turn's worth of production from the homeworld. Roughly 7 or 8 thousand research points, and resources you'll probably make back up in surplus in short order at this point in the game. Not worth a rollback in my opinion.

[Edio]

So far I have met 2/16 races there are to meet. Resistance is futile... Join the Eneron in symbiosis! Muahahaha--*cough*cough*

[AgentPaper]

Er, accidentally missed my turn last round, so I assume the colony ship is still sitting there. Is it too late to get a quick re-do of last turn, with the only change being that the colony ship gets ordered off the planet? Other than that it's really not a big deal that I missed the turn, since I turned off automatic computer control on all of them.

[Douglas]

Considering 5 players have already uploaded, I'd rather not. If Aragehaor asks for it reasonably promptly, I might.

[Aragehaor]

Er, accidentally missed my turn last round, so I assume the colony ship is still sitting there. Is it too late to get a quick re-do of last turn, with the only change being that the colony ship gets ordered off the planet? Other than that it's really not a big deal that I missed the turn, since I turned off automatic computer control on all of them.

Eh. colony ships, sometimes they just suffer a critical engine failure and plummet helplessly towards the planet, burning up and losing life support. Till it is destroyed by the planet's defenses in order to prevent calamity on the planet, such sad things happen. The end result however, is happily the same as if they'd just moved away.



(Though, i still need to suffer through another turn of being 'blockaded' by a single colony ship while my frigate is in orbit. perfectly capable of making that not so.)

[Douglas]

So, colony ship's apparently about to die, turn stands as is, and Aragehaor and AgentPaper are the last two left to upload.

[Douglas]

AgentPaper, it's down to just you.

[AgentPaper]

Sorry about all the missed turns. I came down with a pretty nasty cold the past few days, and I'm still ejecting mucosal body fluids at a steady rate from various orifices. Makes it hard to concentrate and figure out things such as how much time I actually have left to do a turn.

[Volatar]

I am going to be away for the next week at scout camp, is it possible for someone to take over control of my empire for a while?

[Aragehaor]

I am going to be away for the next week at scout camp, is it possible for someone to take over control of my empire for a while?

I could take control of it. Just send me your password a general idea of what you want your empire to do. (Ergo. research.)

[Douglas]

Down to Edio and AgentPaper with about 5 hours to go. AgentPaper's missed quite a few turns here, should I delay the turn until he's well enough to play again?

[Cobalt]

I would say so, or until another solution is found.

[AgentPaper]

Doing my turn right now, should have it in in 10-20 minutes.


Edit: Turn done. I got Raran's two messages for non-aggression pacts, but if anyone else sent me messages during this time and didn't get a reply, you'll need to send it again.

[Douglas]

New turn is up.

Ah, troops are finally being built. Let the parades and accompanying parties begin!:smallwink:You know, because troops make everyone jubilant.

Homeworld is on slow build, good thing I have some colonies with space yards to take over the expansion effort.

[Ilena]

Indeed to both .... indeed to both ...