About research:
I was thinking, can a race with every tech +75 survive in the long run? It gives a lot of points to spend elsewhere.. but will it be a hopeless race? Any one tried it?
Eg if I design a 2500, 15/9/25 factory JOAT race, I can get a lot of resources and good habitat. (and yes, be very vulnerable to anti-factory-bombing-raids..) At least the "All 'Costs 75% extra'" would apply to all fields..
Guess any SS players would be very happy with such a race in the universe though..

If you condemn my race, what is the minimum number of cheap techs I should have?..

Another question:
If I play on a different computer, do I lose scan data etc? I played a turn or two on the computer at my parents house during Easter, and was later wondering if I had not visited a planet earlier or not.. it may be just bad memory..

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platon79 wrote on Thu, 15 April 2004 12:31

About research: I was thinking, can a race with every tech +75 survive in the long run? It gives a lot of points to spend elsewhere.. but will it be a hopeless race? Any one tried it? Eg if I design a 2500, 15/9/25 factory JOAT race, I can get a lot of resources and good habitat. (and yes, be very vulnerable to anti-factory-bombing-raids..) At least the "All 'Costs 75% extra'" would apply to all fields.. Guess any SS players would be very happy with such a race in the universe though..

15/9 factories with 1/2500 pop eff is too expensive. Consider 8 cost to be the max with 1/2500. 7 is better.

All expensive *can* work, but keep in mind you're going to be very very vulnerable if you have an HP with all expensive. You're slow due to the low pop eff and need to build factories, and slowed further since your research is expensive. This means there'll be a long lead time where you can't attack, and will barely be able to defend yourself. Not for the faint of heart, or those who aren't willing to give diplomacy their all (and even then, if you have a rabid neighbor...)

platon79 wrote on Thu, 15 April 2004 12:31

If you condemn my race, what is the minimum number of cheap techs I should have?..

Weapons cheap is generally considered the minimum. I prefer weapons and con cheap as my default - battleships (and nubians) rock.

platon79 wrote on Thu, 15 April 2004 12:31

Another question: If I play on a different computer, do I lose scan data etc? I played a turn or two on the computer at my parents house during Easter, and was later wondering if I had not visited a planet earlier or not.. it may be just bad memory..

You need to copy your .h file to the different computer, then copy it back. The .h file is where all the information you've found out on previous turns is stored.

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platon79 wrote on Thu, 15 April 2004 11:31

About research: I was thinking, can a race with every tech +75 survive in the long run?

I'm sure that most everyone has tried this type of race. It can be very powerful, if you survive to the end game. What are you thinking for you mine settings? IMO, that is the most important part of a HP. All the resources in the universe means nothing if you have no metal...

As to it's viability, well...I'd say it's viability is inversely proportional to the other players abilities. So, as skill level goes up, viability goes down. I have defeated many opponets because I had a higher tech, even though I didn't have near the resources. Heh, and you can only tech trade 1 level a year.

-Matt

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Orca wrote on Thu, 15 April 2004 11:43

Weapons cheap is generally considered the minimum. I prefer weapons and con cheap as my default - battleships (and nubians) rock.

This can be dependant on your play style. If you are good at diplomacy, you could take Weap exp, and a different tech cheap. Just plan on finding someone to trade *something* for it. Nearly everyone takes weapons cheap, so this isn't to tough. I haven't actually done it pecifically for weapons, as my confidence in others abilities isn't high enough. However, I have started to take Energy as normal, or expensive, for this reason (my standard has been weap, con, energy cheap, and maybe 1 normal). I take prop cheap instead, now, and it seems to work well. I would never trade for Con, though. The gap between 16 and 24 is to big, and Nubs are just to powerful.

-Matt

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Hi!

platon79 wrote on Thu, 15 April 2004 18:31

About research: I was thinking, can a race with every tech +75 survive in the long run? It gives a lot of points to spend elsewhere...

... but you'll not be able to trade tech with your neighbours, because you'll not have any to offer. When I design a race I always ask myself "What will it trade?", because IMO trade is essential for surviving in Stars!. One who's not trading is useless for his neighbour(s), so he may easily become the first to be attacked.
FYI in the last game I played a HP IS with weap cheap rest expensive. After buying initial pop-moving tech I just put research almost exclusively ('ve researched some levels of prop because no one was selling it) into weapons until level 26 and announced I'm selling weapons tech. The effect was double: despite being a slow HP I was protected by simple fact I had the best weapons in known universe ; and after some 60 turns of tech trading my race was the first in the universe to field an AMP Nubian with CPS and TS-20 engine . My trading partners had 2 or 3 needed techs, the rest of races one or two. If I'd have known what that advantage means, the game would have ended much sooner .
BR, Iztok

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[Updated on: Thu, 15 April 2004 19:23]

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And so, for a while, all techs expensive was considered 'best'.

But then a certain 'Barry' taught everyone the business end of weapons cheap:

Jason Cawley (1998):
"This being before Barry had taught everyone the business end of "weapons cheap" , my tech settings were all expensive and start at 3."

Certainly if you don't take weapons cheap, you MUST have a reliable plan to obtain your weapons tech elsewhere. I certainly learned this in my last game - I had weapons expensive (doh!), my first ally had GR and my best ally had weapons normal (sensible hedge) which resulted in a real struggle for us all to keep up in weapons tech despite very competitive resource totals.

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I agree that the 200 extra resources really have to be pushed into mine efficiency - it's no good having enough resources to build the extra ships to handle a tech deficiency if you run out of minerals (again, I learned this the hard way... )

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Dogthinkers wrote on Thu, 15 April 2004 20:07

But then a certain 'Barry' taught everyone the business end of weapons cheap: Jason Cawley (1998): "This being before Barry had taught everyone the business end of "weapons cheap" , my tech settings were all expensive and start at 3."

Barry Kearns, AKA Vektor. Really nice guy, very knowledgable and back in the day, one of the movers and shakers of Stars!. He fell victim to a Level 5 Pants Alert, and has been seen very infrequently at best since in the Stars! community.

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Orca wrote on Fri, 16 April 2004 11:21

He fell victim to a Level 5 Pants Alert

Uhhhh? Say wha?

Sounds like something I caught in India...

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ok.... definitions time

In my (limited) understanding these are the common usages of these terms:

HG = 1000 pop efficiency
HP = 2500 pop efficiency

NF = -f = factoryless (special case of HG)
HR = max resource type race design (typically HP type?)
QS = ?? ('normal' HG?)



What exactly is a front loaded HR? It sounds suspiciously like a typical HG. If you take a HR and strip out the hyper-factories you just get left with a normal HG race, right?

eek! too many acronyms floating around here

In my last game I played a HR with 15/8/25 (game settings 15/x/25) and HG 1000 pop efficiency. Started beautifully, but I dumped weap cheap to get the RW points to afford these dream econ settings and still get 1 in 4 habs...doh!

[Updated on: Fri, 16 April 2004 01:55]

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Dogthinkers wrote on Fri, 16 April 2004 07:54

ok.... definitions time In my (limited) understanding these are the common usages of these terms: HG = 1000 pop efficiency HP = 2500 pop efficiency NF = -f = factoryless (special case of HG) HR = max resource type race design (typically HP type?) QS = ?? ('normal' HG?)

QS = Quick Start (I guess the name already explains the nature of the beast )

mch

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Dogthinkers wrote on Fri, 16 April 2004 01:54

HG = 1000 pop efficiency HP = 2500 pop efficiency NF = -f = factoryless (special case of HG) [...] In my last game I played a HR with 15/8/25 (game settings 15/x/25) and HG 1000 pop efficiency. Started beautifully, but I dumped weap cheap to get the RW points to afford these dream econ settings and still get 1 in 4 habs...doh!

That last is classic HR. HP factories, HG pop eff. Everything sacrificed upon the altar of resources.

QS is Quickstart. Originally defined as being something along the lines of 1/2500 15/6/21g (but these have become outmoded). Current meaning has it being a particularly fast version of HGs - typically taking the factory efficiency to 14 or 15, often with weapons and con cheap. Designed to beat HGs off the starting line and start smashing enemies early. Primary weakness typically revolves around the heavy toll taken in LRTs and hab to achieve that factory efficiency. Unsuitable for anything larger than a medium, and a medium is iffy due to hab.

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Hi!
More definitions...

Dogthinkers wrote on Fri, 16 April 2004 07:54

HG = 1000 pop efficiency

hab 1 in 4-7 (1 in 6-9 with immunity), PGR 18-19%,
fac settings 10-12/9-10/12-16 ?g, mines 10/3/14-18,
1-2 tech cheap, 1-2 normal, 2-5 expensive
+ OBRM
Good speed, moderate to good capacity, used in 80-120 turns games. Low demand on MM, played the most.

Quote:

HP = 2500 pop efficiency

hab 1 in 3-7, PGR 16-19%,
fac settings 14-15/7-8/20-25 g checked, mines 10+/3/17-25,
0-1 tech cheap, 0-2 normal, 4-5 expensive, start at 3 checked
+ remote mining
Slow to average speed, very good capacity, used in 100+ turns games. More MM then a HG, even more with remote mining.

Quote:

NF = -f = factoryless (special case of HG)

hab 1 in 3-6 + immunity, PGR 19-20%,
fac settings the worst, mines 10/3/10-15,
1-3 tech cheap, 1-4 normal, 0-3 expensive
+ OBRM, Improved Starbases
Good speed, low to moderate capacity, used in below 80 turns games. Heavy on pop MM, moderate on warfare MM.

Quote:

QS = ?? ('normal' HG?)

QS = HG on steroids
hab 1 in 8-20 + immunity, PGR 19-20%,
14-15/7-8/13-18 g checked, mines 10+/3/13-18
1-2 tech cheap, 0-2 normal, 2-4 expensive
?OBRM, ?Improved Starbases,
Very good speed, low capacity, below 80 turns / crowded games. Low on econ MM, high on warfare MM.
My
BR, Iztok

[Updated on: Fri, 16 April 2004 08:23]

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Hi!

Dogthinkers wrote on Fri, 16 April 2004 07:54

In my last game I played a HR with 15/8/25 (game settings 15/x/25) and HG 1000 pop efficiency. Started beautifully, but I dumped weap cheap to get the RW points to afford these dream econ settings and still get 1 in 4 habs...doh!

No wonder you lost that game to a 6% HE. I can not make a viable (at least IMO) race with those settings. It lacks pop (14% PGR) and minerals (16 operated). Dropping pop eff to 1/2500 would give you 17% PGR, fac's cost 7 and 15/3/21 mines - I'd say quite a playable race. For weap cheap you'd have to set fac's back to 8 and set mines to 13/3/22 - more viable IMO.
BR, Iztok

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Carn wrote on Fri, 16 April 2004 02:16

Am i correct to say that 80-90% of race design is guessing what the rest of players have?

Speaking strictly for myself, and generally unable to express anything clearly at that, this is only true to a certain extent, although certainly not up to 80-90%. While I do include what I think others might do in race design, my own race design is influenced more by universe size/density, number of players, game victory conditions and my intended long-term strategy to achieve said game victory conditions. That "whole game strategy" mentioned in the Strategy Guide.

Example: - I guarantee you that my race design for a large/packed universe with team victory allowed will be different from a race designed for a large/packed universe with a "last man standing" victory condition. The first game will probably result in a race designed for diplomacy and owning nice, geeky toys to offer in trade. The second game would (probably) result in a more econ-oriented race that can stand on its own a bit better. Then again, it might only warrant a PRT change. A "vanilla" HG WM race could work well in the first game because of the good opportunities for a long-term alliance being worked up where I could trade for mine-layers to help me protect my WM empire. The same race could possibly take off and have an early dominance in game two only to die under a combined assault by a short-term agreement of other races who feel it to be in their better interests to eliminate the war-enhanced PRT and then take their chances with the others as the short-term alliance breaks up after my death (or mere castration). Clear as mud?

But my game philosophy is sort of along the lines of Vince Lombardi's coaching practice (sorry for the ancient football reference, but I am ancient ... and I did play football) where victory is defined by "execution". In the Stars! universe, it is not so much about your race design as it is how you play that race design. If you design a race that is geared toward early attack, kill a race or two before 2460 comes along and then dominate until everyone concedes, you will be doomed to die (or at least come in a distant wanna-be) if you grow until 2440, pack everything in while setting a strong defensive perimeter and then start playing the diplomatic game trying to jockey for an advantage. Same thing if you design a long-term, slow-growing HP and start an early war with an aggressive neighbor.

But I do try to second-guess what my opponents will be doing, don't get me wrong. I just don't let that dominate my thinking. In fact, you should avoid that kind of thinking to a certain degree as it tends to give initiative over to your opponents, which is not good.

It's a very simplified example but I hope you get my drift.

Carn wrote just a bit later on Fri, 16 April 2004 02:16

What i have not yet understood, is how to design a CA TT that gets along well with others in the long run. First there is bad reputation, second it seems to me skilled players design races, that need little terraforming, and third everybody knows, that in late game CA TT greedily stares at every planet due to live everywhere. Any ideas for a CA TT, that can find long term allies easy(non of those liars, who bow as long as they need terraforming)?

If you get this one figured out, please share it with me.

But, again just my opinion, this is a problem for diplomacy. Knowing how to make nice to those early aggressive players until you are in a position to dominate them. You have to play the early years with your heart in your throat waiting for the opportunity to clear your throat so you can laugh the others into oblivion.

I hope I have provided some real insight, and not just cramped my fingers for useless drivel.

The Crusader

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