I've tinkered countless times with a SS theme race - pirates. To closely imitate the space pirates and lawless "galactic rim" pioneers of science fiction, this race is all about stealth, plunder, escape, and not at all about being productive or industrialized. In Stars!, this means lowest possible factory and mine settings. Since they would be a collection of various races their hab settings will be very broad with no immunities. The ability to steal technology will be heavily relied upon, in most cases making this race trail behind in tech and having to make do with out of date ships.

The problems with making such a race competitive or capable of attaining victory conditions should be fairly obvious. I think I could probably make a competitive race in a game with no tech trade (tech spying then becomes more powerful), but I think I have a better idea: run this race with no intention of trying to win. Just role-play a collection of space pirates, minor races and confederates the best that Stars! will allow.

The settings for this game would be something like:
Medium Universe (possibly bigger)
Normal Density (flexible on this point)
Farther Player Positions (again, flexible)
Acc BBS

# of players depends on interest, I'd say the more the merrier
PRT Restriction: No IS or SD

Victory conditions: Exceed second place by 100% after 100-150 years (a There Can Be Only One scenario to avoid large entangling alliances which can be boring and probably counter-productive to the Pirate theme). The "flexible" settings above will be established early on with the help of interested players so that race design can begin.


The Pirates will start in the center of the universe, but will not have a 30 minimum mineral concentration HW to make assaulting them of little benefit. Otherwise their HW will be unchanged. This center placement is to approximate pioneers settling the more dangeous center of the galaxy, and the riff-raff of the galaxy's races forming crime syndicates and protection rackets to take advantage of the lawlessness of this unpoliced area. Also to prevent any advantage/disadvantage from starting adjacent to the Pirates. Possibly we will have a 30 year ban on attacking the Pirate HW to keep someone from trying to employ that strategy and make the whole scenario moot.

The goal of the game is for everyone to have fun, but also to be competitive and for one player to win. The Pirates hopefully add an interesting twist to a normal TCBOO game. Eliminating the Pirates is not necessary, rewarded or punished out-of-game. The exact Pirate race settings will remain a mystery but will follow the guidelines above. The goal of the Pirates will be to become as "rich" and powerful as possible in order to protect their swashbuckling way of life. Although I don't see how this would be possible, if the Pirates obtain the victory condition they win the game - establishing a galactic mobocracy if you will.

The Pirates player will be hosting, but will not have any extra out-of-game information. A third party will check for cheats occassionally and at the request of any suspicious players. If this third party wants to be involved as a host as well that would save me the bother Normal anti-cheat rules apply; chaff and split-dodge ok. Every day turn generation until 24XX then 4 turns a week works pretty well, but this too is open to debate.


Please post here if you are interested.

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

So medium normal or large sparse ... single victor game. Very good choice i think so far. IS and SD banned... okay host ban what he like. Just that CA or JOAT are lot earlier PITA for SS i suggest.

Host plays somewhat questionable race design of SS using somewhat questionable strategy. Whys that so important? Questionable quality design and strategy can be (and often is) used in any game. Who objects or who cares? Better of course if rest of the players are more interesting opponents. Others may play SS too (SS arent banned) so can show that SS is quite nice PRT in good hands.

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

To further the Pirate theme you might require that the player races cannot ally with each other, but the CAN ally with the Pirates. Historically pirates have thrived only in the context of great power struggles. If the great powers combine they easily destroy the pirates. However, if the great powers are fighting each other then the pirates can not only operate with a good chance of success, but they can also work with one or more great powers or get bought off by a great power, etc.

Of course any agreement with pirates is as substantial as the air.

Report message to a moderator

vonKreedon wrote on Tue, 11 October 2005 12:02

To further the Pirate theme you might require that the player races cannot ally with each other, but the CAN ally with the Pirates. Historically pirates have thrived only in the context of great power struggles. If the great powers combine they easily destroy the pirates. However, if the great powers are fighting each other then the pirates can not only operate with a good chance of success, but they can also work with one or more great powers or get bought off by a great power, etc. Of course any agreement with pirates is as substantial as the air.

A very good point. I don't want to put any artificial constraints on that, but certainly by mid-game the Pirates could use a friend or two. This also goes along with my "attacking the pirates won't have any out-of-game consequences" comment.

Your comment reminds me of Sid Meyer's "Pirates!" Ah, good times... good times.

Report message to a moderator

DTITAN wrote on Tue, 11 October 2005 17:26

I could be wrong, but I thought New Game Announcements should only be made when the game is ready to be played. Right now I'm trying to gauge interest and settle on game params.

Than the Bar is the right place for this thread!

mch

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

I'm glad that there is some interest and feedback. As I've said, I want it to be a mostly normal game. As someone else said, "What's in it for the other players?" These are the two secondary goals in setting up this game (the primary being setting up the pirate scenario, obv).

I don't think the capturing ships suggestion fits with those two ideas. VGA Planets had a decent system for that, though.

Two allied pirate races is a possibility. I think, though, that it would only serve to make the pirates even more annoying, which is probably bad.

I understand the reasoning behind the question: "What's in it for the other players?" SS typically add MM to a game and paranoia and frustration Hopefully the fact that you know that you'll have to put up with at least one SS is balanced out by a new twist on this great game.

The Pirates, as I'm developing them, will not be setting up any permanent bases, won't set up any permanent borders, but will roam where ever they can find an empty (or undefended) rock to call home. In this way they'll be unlike any Stars! race I've ever seen played; they are not trying to build an empire, they're just stealing whatever they need to survive.

I think it will be an interesting twist for the other players.

I honestly don't even know how successful the Pirates will be against human opponents. The more I think about it the more I think Tech Trade will have to be banned, though. Has anyone ever played a game where this was considered a form of cheating, but other player relations were allowed? It seems like an easy rule for players to follow and not too difficult to catch cheaters.

Report message to a moderator

I was also just thinking about the Pirates being two races, but I was thinking IS and SS. My reason is that pirates need to be able to set up ports of opportunity and that are not of interest to others. IS could colonize reds if they met the needs and use the flying orgy to keep from losing people. Plus IS and SS have all the coolest gadgets.

Also having the Tach Detectors would reduce the Pirates likelihood of being ambushed, which fits into the genre.

If the Pirates arent' going to take ships, then they are going to have to build them. In order to build ships in any quantity or size they will need an economy with production planets and that seems anti-thematic.

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

I like the idea of there being multiple pirate races... But give them different controllers. Make all other players set eachother to enemy (cooperation allowed in other ways) to represent the inherent distrust of the major powers towards eachother, then set 2-3 pirate races with no diplomatic restrictionas at all. The pirates could be SS, IT and IS. You could hire a pirate to weaken an enemy who thought you were their allies, funneling them ships and whatnot, if you can trust them that far... Sounds like great fun to me.

Sign me up as a pirate by preferance, or other player if not.

Report message to a moderator

[Updated on: Thu, 13 October 2005 12:03]

Report message to a moderator

[Updated on: Fri, 14 October 2005 03:04]

Report message to a moderator

I had thought that minimum mine settings was required for the pirates as well... Thus making it impossible to compete in a normal way with another empire. I was thinking the pirates would start out in the normal way (no extra work for a host or 3rd party), but their unique race settings would require them to act very differently. My idea with the IT was grab a whole lot of space to grow pop, but evacuate planets as other races near and take only the planets they give you. Then sell transit on the gate network for minerals or ships... (Dibs on IT pirates )

I do like the idea of 'burying' treasure. Then you could have a pirate winner and a normal winner.

The IS pirates could grow pop in transit, but what could they offer that would prevent the larger empires from just killing them off? The SS can hide itself better, and the IT can be usefull, but the IS would (I think) just get itself killed.

Report message to a moderator

[Updated on: Fri, 14 October 2005 12:51]

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

icebird wrote on Fri, 14 October 2005 12:39

I had thought that minimum mine settings was required for the pirates as well... Thus making it impossible to compete in a normal way with another empire. I was thinking the pirates would start out in the normal way (no extra work for a host or 3rd party), but their unique race settings would require them to act very differently. My idea with the IT was grab a whole lot of space to grow pop, but evacuate planets as other races near and take only the planets they give you. Then sell transit on the gate network for minerals or ships... (Dibs on IT pirates ) I do like the idea of 'burying' treasure. Then you could have a pirate winner and a normal winner. The IS pirates could grow pop in transit, but what could they offer that would prevent the larger empires from just killing them off? The SS can hide itself better, and the IT can be usefull, but the IS would (I think) just get itself killed.

All very good points. I hadn't thought of how good IT would be at evacuating since they can gate cargo. The first couple sentences "impossible to compete...require them to act very differently" is exactly my original idea.

A lot of the other suggestions make the pirates more interesting to play but not more interesting for the other players. That's a problem, as there seems to be no shortage of players who would like to be pirates, but there needs to be many more regular players. Try to keep that in mind.

[Updated on: Fri, 14 October 2005 14:08]

Report message to a moderator

So if we give the pirates cool SS toys then make them IS race, they could do what vonKreedon is suggesting, but I was imagining the pirates having the same start as everyone else.

dethdukk... I'll duel you for them! (or just play a regular race when)

Report message to a moderator

icebird wrote on Fri, 14 October 2005 18:39

The IS pirates could grow pop in transit, but what could they offer that would prevent the larger empires from just killing them off? The SS can hide itself better, and the IT can be usefull, but the IS would (I think) just get itself killed.

Play the game with jRC3 and give every race a robber baron ship, that way the IS can sell slaves!!!

mch

Report message to a moderator

[Updated on: Sun, 23 October 2005 23:35]

Report message to a moderator