Overall i like the idea and would join that sort of game if someone wants to team with me.

My feelings about discussion so far ... Dropping average concentrations to 10 or below leads to poor variety of viable race designs and game strategies. The replayability of whole concept suffers. Making HW-s mineral rich as compensation makes the above problem even worse and is also outright antithematic.

Lets compare ... "beginner:maximum minerals" increases the concentrations from average ~60 to 100+ everywhere. Concentrations are only ~1.67 times better but when playing ... it feels like boringly big loads of minerals available. It must be that just reducing conc everywhere by factor of 2 (to ~30 as average) everywhere (including HW-s) without leveling anything up makes the game feel different enough but carries no risk of being too unplayable or one-sided. At least for first try of "expert:minimum minerals" concept.

Other preferences ... medium dense sounds good. If possible without IT-s,AR-s & CA-s. Team size 4 is kinda too big; 3 is better and actually 2 is best.

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If I have time when the game starts, I'd be playing too. I am very interested in the concept. It would be great if there'd be a team with an expert player that I could join - I still need lots of experience

Andreas / wizard

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There appears to be some safeguard...
6% is the minimum starting min concs... which is still reasonable

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Kotk wrote on Tue, 04 October 2005 16:12

Lets compare ... "beginner:maximum minerals" increases the concentrations from average ~60 to 100+ everywhere. Concentrations are only ~1.67 times better but when playing ... it feels like boringly big loads of minerals available. It must be that just reducing conc everywhere by factor of 2 (to ~30 as average) everywhere (including HW-s) without leveling anything up makes the game feel different enough but carries no risk of being too unplayable or one-sided. At least for first try of "expert:minimum minerals" concept.

I'm more "visual oriented", what maxmin does is set all mineral concentrations in the right end of the bar, so what minmin should do is place them all at the left end hence 1.

mch

[Updated on: Thu, 06 October 2005 10:08]

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SinicalIdealist wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 18:07

5 teams of 3 players each sounds fun--as there would be some room for diplomacy. I may be interested in this, but I'm currently in a game and don't want to overextend myself.

One of the almost standard rules of the games I host is: all enemy ... Especially in teamgames, with teams of 3 you already have 2 friends, why would you need more?

Kotk wrote on Tue, 04 October 2005 16:12

Other preferences ... medium dense sounds good. If possible without IT-s,AR-s & CA-s. Team size 4 is kinda too big; 3 is better and actually 2 is best.

There would be 4 teams, 5 puts one team in the middle of the universe, ... Each team will have 3 players, and has to consist of 3 different PRTs!

We don't like to just start banning, a ban should have a good reason like to balance the game or keep it playable ... If there is one race that would be really really good for this kind of game and would become a "must have" (like CA in teamgames) that has a high chance to be banned. Finding such a race is part of the goal of this thread ...
Also with 3 races less PRTs "need" to be banned ...

SinicalIdealist wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 18:07

edit: I can't believe I just started arguing against the game and argued myself in favor of it. Poop.

That's because once you start thinking about it, it becomes a very intersting concept IMHO ... at first I wasn't really in favor of it either but than you start wondering about race, team design etc ...

mch

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Micha wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 17:24

If there is one race that would be really really good for this kind of game and would become a "must have" (like CA in teamgames) that has a high chance to be banned.

Lets see ... As i understand each team has about 600x600 ly territory and unoccupied 85-135 planets there are 1 conc so lack elementary mineral source even for basic orbitals. That like i warned narrows the number of successful strategies.

First ... AR will outproduce others with minerals (and become the main source of these for the whole team) *LOT* quicker than usual if game is laid out like you described. Its because building say construction 7 bugs for 30 conc world is significally more profitable work than building mines at 1 conc world. So ... AR is must to have if allowed.

Say AR is banned then without AR-s it is quite likely that there is no way to have enough minerals for the whole empire and players very likely take strategy to ignore the dry planets and go after opponents HWs asap. 2WW PP + 2WW IT + 1WW CA is most powerful there, best starting minerals (2WWs), quickest in attack or defense (IT), best longevity (CA), and overtaken opponent HW-s are probably most useful (CA).

On case IT and AR are banned it is basically a teamgame with lack of minerals and with serious transport problems. So around are 1WW-s or -F-s of other PRT-s that are significally less powerful and quick in attack than 2WW IT-s. Having one CA around is the sure way to go if only allowed.

On case CA and AR are banned IT is anyway obvious since cheap transportation.

So these are the very reasons why i suggested banning these PRTs.

[edit: Did not notice 3 different PRTs rule in hurry]

[Updated on: Thu, 06 October 2005 13:24]

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As for universe size.

Ptolemy wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 18:33

I do agree that we should keep the game to a maximum of a medium sized universe - packed or dense won't make all that much difference but, I'ld prefer to see it as dense with galaxy clumping.

Well, I meant *at least* medium size, reason see below.

Kotk wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 19:08

Lets see ... As i understand each team has about 600x600 ly territory and unoccupied 85-135 planets there are 1 conc so lack elementary mineral source even for basic orbitals. That like i warned narrows the number of successful strategies. <snip AR for now> Say AR is banned then without AR-s it is quite likely that there is no way to have enough minerals for the whole empire and players very likely take strategy to ignore the dry planets and go after opponents HWs asap. 2WW PP + 2WW IT + 1WW CA is most powerful there, best starting minerals (2WWs), quickest in attack or defense (IT), best longevity (CA), and overtaken opponent HW-s are probably most useful (CA).

That's the reason, a too small universe makes OWW or 1WW races livable, that's not the idea of the game, the idea is to live and cope with minmin, not make it a OWW game where there happens to be a lot more space and planets ... that you can just ignore ...

I didn't mention this before, hoping it would come up sooner or later (I'd rather let people come up with idea's therself instead of telling them), there have to be enough planets to make it *worthwile* or *needed* to colonize them, to build mines on them or go high in resources and practise MA ...
Hm, maybe not only the size matters but also the concentration ...



Funny to haven't seen any number crunching yet comparing max mines versus MA, or the various mineral/resource outputs of the different PRTs ...

Another thing that makes the game (or should make it) interesting is the duality that comes from MA: spend resources on higher tech and find yourself outgunned by low level hordes afterall, or the other way around.

mch

[Updated on: Thu, 06 October 2005 16:46]

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mlaub wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 17:58

As I am considering this game...I'll jump in here. Didn't you deny all communications between teams in a few of the games you hosted? You would need to spell out a few other things too, if you are intent all teams on "Enemy" status. No intentional tech trading? Tech trading and Enemy status are not thematic IMO, but you will find players trying to trade if it is not spelled out. How about communications in general? I hosted a similar game once with no communications between teams, and one team decided to be cute and start communicating via ship and starbase names...

Specificly denying all communications I did only once IIRC (or in two similtaneous games). Yes, have seen that sort of communiques through ship and starbase names, and fully ignored them with my team. I wouldn't deny communication anymore, only cooperation (in ANY form), should this rule make it of course ...

As for my latest game that I'm hosting (TWWT) I indeed had to spell out everything I meant by "all enemy" ... The human mind is very resourceful in how to misinterpret things that are so clear to others.

Quote:

Kotk wrote on Tue, 04 October 2005 16:12 Other preferences ... medium dense sounds good. If possible without IT-s,AR-s & CA-s. Team size 4 is kinda too big; 3 is better and actually 2 is best. I don't see an issue with IT's. While that race would be nice, it isn't necessarily the next best choice in a game like this. I've been in a team game like this, and our team opted for a different PRT.

So someone with experience. Any pointers?

mch

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Diplomcacy.

SinicalIdealist wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 21:54

On a practical matter, it will naturally be to each team's interest to find out how everyone else is doing in comparison to one's own team (simply via scouting). Through this, you will necessarily arrive at some amount of knowledge of how advanced team A is compared to Team B compared to your team. If team A looks to be more powerful than Team B + your team and Team B is as dilligent at scouting as you, then teams will necessarily form ad hoc non-aggression pacts. Restricting communication simply makes this natural process of balancing slower and less precise. The ultimate goal of the game should be 1 team wins only. If all players allow one team to gain an insurmountable lead. I prefer games with as few restrictions as possible. If a restriction must be made, it must be made to maintain playability. Restricting all communications doesn't ADD anything to the game.

I indeed want as ultimate goal to have only 1 winner.
I'm not restricting communications, I'm trying to prevent the game ending like a (too) large percentage of all Stars! games: "hey! there is the big bad guy! Let's all ally" ... 100 years later ... "well he is finally dead, put up quite a fight, but now that we, the 10 surviving races are friends, why fight? let's end this game" ... <sigh>

This *will* happen, I'm trying to prevent that by limiting step 1: the forming of a large alliance. Once again: you already have an alliance of 3 races, you have 2 tech trading partners already, why look elsewhere ...
I'm "trying", if you have another solution please say so.

I _do_ leave this option open, I don't want to rule "all enemy" right away, I just mentioned that it had somewhat become a standard for the games I hosted ...

As for the last teamgame (Rings1) we were lucky to have 4 teams that were very equal, upto 2460-70 (game was set to end in 2500) or so it was unclear who was the strongest. My team fought all 3 other teams, not all in the same extent, some borders were silent for dozens years and than suddenly escalated. There were never any formal NAPs still there was a good balance.

Quote:

Diplomacy is an additional facet to the game, that IMO, adds a great deal of complexity. Should this facet be removed, I would find this game far less interesting.

Don't forget the added time that diplomacy brings along! In games where diplocacy is allowed I sometimes end up spending more time reading and writing mails (in a foreign language) than playing my turns! Time much better spend in being with family for instance.

Quote:

I don't look at each race being a separate player. I consider each TEAM to be a different player (ostensibly). With 5 different active parties in a game, there's still considerable room for negotiations.

In a teamgame there are no seperate players, each team is one entity. I always highly appreciate teams actually playing and coming out as a team, upto race and teamname. (large part of our pre-game discussion are those names )

Anyway, 5 teams might indeed be better for diplomacy, I still have to point out again: one team will be in the middle no "safe" places like the other 4 teams, and showing the slightest sign of weakness (in military power or in diplomacy) it will get attacked from 4 sides and devoured in no time ...

mch

[Updated on: Thu, 06 October 2005 16:45]

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vonKreedon wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 22:41

Micha - Why do you want to rule out diplomacy as a part of this game? For me diplomacy is a major part of playing Stars! and I'd hate to see it simply taken off of the table.

vK, I was just trying to answer that in another post. I'd think you're one that would dislike the situation large alliances can create, I'm trying to prevent that.
But like I say in that post I'm not ruling out diplomacy, I'm trying to rule out such a high level of cooperation that the game will just bleed to death. And I would like to do that as less complicated as possible.
"All enemy" is not a set rule, I just mentioned it as a standard and as a possibility.

Personally I'm in favor of it, maybe I shouldn't advocate it since I'm not considered to be neutral, and people will accept it as a fact and rule of the game when I do.

mch

[Updated on: Thu, 06 October 2005 16:52]

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vonKreedon wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 22:53

Perhaps if you used PPS, something I'm generally averse to, you could say that all allies of the team with the lowest average ranking must immediately begin a 5 year disengagement from that alliance. This way the number one team would always be allyless, but everyone else would be free to create coalitions. It would also make the number one team less of a threat and create less need for grand coalitions.

vK, thanks for that suggestion, that's certainly something to consider! And do-able without PPS (which I really dislike) by having a thrid party checking from time to time.
Like I said I want to keep this as simple as possible, this might indeed be simple enough ...

mch

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Hi!

Micha wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 22:05

Funny to haven't seen any number crunching yet comparing max mines versus MA, or the various mineral/resource outputs of the different PRTs ...

Hey, I alrady said I'll not participate in this game!
I admit I'm intrigued, but I'm feed-up with slow games for a while.

Quote:

Another thing that makes the game (or should make it) interesting is the duality that comes from MA: spend resources on higher tech and find yourself outgunned by low level hordes afterall, or the other way around.

IMO there will NOT be low-tech hordes. Minerals will be too valuable to be spent on hulls with 1/3 FP of the ones with higher-tech. Players will be building only what they'll absolutely must, saving minerals for better tech. No packets, hordes, factories, defences, suicidal attacks... Like playing AR without remote miners, constantly checking what, where and when you'll need something... No thanks.
BR, Iztok

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iztok wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 23:13

Quote: Another thing that makes the game (or should make it) interesting is the duality that comes from MA: spend resources on higher tech and find yourself outgunned by low level hordes afterall, or the other way around. IMO there will NOT be low-tech hordes. Minerals will be too valuable to be spent on hulls with 1/3 FP of the ones with higher-tech. Players will be building only what they'll absolutely must, saving minerals for better tech.

That's when UR might be useful.

mch

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Micha wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 15:18

I did only once IIRC (or in two similtaneous games).

Yes, my team played in the second one (101 years or something). Alot of fun.

mlaub wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 17:58

I don't see an issue with IT's. While that race would be nice, it isn't necessarily the next best choice in a game like this. I've been in a team game like this, and our team opted for a different PRT.

Quote:

So someone with experience. Any pointers? mch

Well, without giving to much away, I'll say this much. I have played in 2 team games like this, and both without an IT PRT. IT has some great advantages, it is great for transport, waging an early war, and incredible for fleet mobility. However, in a min min game there are several PRT's that would probably yield much better *overall* results, especially in combination of 2 other PRT's designed to work together. My first 2 dream teams that came to mind, didn't have an IT on them. Just not enough worth, IMO, compared to potential gains/uses of other PRT's.

-Matt

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Quote:

In a teamgame there are no seperate players, each team is one entity. I always highly appreciate teams actually playing and coming out as a team, upto race and teamname. (large part of our pre-game discussion are those names )

Agreed! I think Larry, Moe, and Curly was one of our teams theme. Can't think of the others off hand... Can you imagine the ship names?

Quote:

Anyway, 5 teams might indeed be better for diplomacy, I still have to point out again: one team will be in the middle no "safe" places like the other 4 teams

Why not? You could make the universe into a big fat donut with a Star shape in the center, which effectively divids it into fifths (Picture a star circumscibed by a circle plus a little buffer). Just make the star middle and the corners empty of planets. I think that would be pretty easy, as I have played with that utility before. Not sure it would work with the other utilities, but it would be interesting to try it.

-Matt

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Micha wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 23:05

That's the reason, a too small universe makes OWW or 1WW races livable, that's not the idea of the game, the idea is to live and cope with minmin, not make it a OWW game where there happens to be a lot more space and planets ... that you can just ignore ...

I tried to fight that with my suggestion to have concentrations halved instead of zeroed. 1 conc planets are almost worthless and its hard to negate that effect. Its 1WW JOAT who can squeeze best minerals out of HW after AR but it cant compete with 2WW IT in mobility and resources. Taking larger universe just makes it viable for these OWW-s to trade their pop efficency for ~10 more mine efficiency.

Quote:

Funny to haven't seen any number crunching yet comparing max mines versus MA, or the various mineral/resource outputs of the different PRTs ...

Okay... its bar here and i am in mood.

MA lrt 25 res for 1 mineral. Alternatively you got to build 100 mines (300 res) for 1 mineral per year with mine eff 10. So such mines at 1 conc world produce their worth back within 12 years 10 is probably unusual mine eff... in such a game but okay. Now lets see ARM... say max tech if we take large territory. It pays back mining 1 conc world with max tech ARM bugs during ~20 years compared to MA. Oh OBRM+MA is 85 rw points cheaper than ARM. Anyway that all is sad and slow investment compared to having AR ally.

Funny that trading max tech OBRM miners to AR is better investment than alcheming with MA. Say instead 3 * 25 res MA-s you can build one 8 mine miner and its mining power is 2.4 constantly at 30 conc world. Its pure theory ... having dedicated AR around theres never such need of course. AR is simply must to ban even if universe average conc is only halved to 30.

All these speculations do not affect the early exceptional mineral power of OWW-s. OWW-s will be there anyway with 1 all around field conc. OWW has best RW points available for investing into mining its HW and nearing it with minerals by colonizing lots of 1 conc planets and MA-ing there is quite impossible. Where are OWW-s there IT is most powerful among them and CA is best to have as friend. Its at least worth considering banning one or both of these PRT-s for bigger variety of such OWW-s To get rid of OWWs its worth considering improving the field concentrations a bit for making competive mineral power possible to have with more spread out races.

[Updated on: Thu, 06 October 2005 19:33]

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[Updated on: Fri, 07 October 2005 02:30] by Moderator

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SinicalIdealist wrote on Fri, 07 October 2005 03:01

...But what about non OBRM/non ARM? I'm not at home and near stars! so unable to look this up, but I'd wage non ARM/non OBRM would be slightly more efficient....

Most efficent no-ARM miner at maxed tech (C26/L23) is the Robo maxi because its fully miniaturized (miniaturization without BET takes +19 levels). Robo Super does not miniaturize so well cause there are no const 31. Robo-maxi is ~30% worse than Ultra bug. I think numbers like 20-27 years are anyway terrible.
So ... OBRM OWW-s will rock unless the other worlds minerals are improved.

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Hi!

Micha wrote on Thu, 06 October 2005 23:22

That's when UR might be useful.

UR gives back 90% of minerals. "Normal" scraping gives back 80%. Miniaturization takes away 4% per level. IMO only with slow tech and low resources UR might be a good choice.

Also, I'm sorry if I sounded harsh in my previous message.
BR, Iztok

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