The game idea is only for making the game memorable and fun for the players and to get rid of the most annoying problem of low level stars games.


Game size: Medium / normal / distant
Game settings: Acc. BBS, slow tech, other boxes unchecked.
Player level: beginner, 10 to 16 players as Goods + at least 1 Necromancer Apprentice of intermediate+ level as Evil.
Hosting: Hosted at AH. Host is not playing, however he must know all race passwords all time to monitor cheatings and other transactions.
Race rules: CA got to take MA and may not take OBRM, JOAT may not have NAS, other PRT-s are free of special rules. Necromancer has no race at start.
Cooperation: Good players may freely cooperate militarily but must have all other Good races besides one set to enemy. Also they may not trade ships or technologies with more than one other Good race. If they want to switch their non-enemy Good at least 5 years must have passed after event of trade. Good player may kill other Good if he needs, he is still a Good. Good may cooperate with Evil how lot he wants, he may even sacrifice his race to Evil but then he loses control of it.
Schedule: 5 turns per week until y2450, then 3 turns per week.
Victory condition: At least 75 years must have passed before victory conditions may be evaluated. Solo Good player or alliance of two Good players may win. All players (including Evils) must agree with that victory.

The One Ring rules:
If a Good player misses 3 turns in a row his AH upload password changes and the race falls into hands of Evil automatically. Finding Good replacements to themself is allowed to Good players, but these must be beginners too. Necromancer is Evil and he may freely cooperate/recruit other Evils or to play all present Evil races alone if he wants to. Necromancer can cooperate and to trade with whoever he wants to. Also he may miss how lot of turns he wants.
Special victory condition: All remaining Good players may bow down to the Forces Of Evil.
Cheating: I hate cheating. No pregame alliances, no intermediates sneaking in as beginners, no silly tries to search loopholes in the rules. All known and unknown cheats besides split fleet dodge and chaff are forbidden and cheating race will join the Evil immediately. If Evil cheats it will be banned and game continues without Evil.

What you people think? The names of sides may be changed so beginners are "Evils" and "Good" is waiting for its chance, just the idea in general?

[Updated on: Sun, 08 January 2006 13:39]

Report message to a moderator

Kotk wrote on Sun, 08 January 2006 19:12

The One Ring rules: If a Good player misses 3 turns in a row his AH upload password changes and the race falls into hands of Evil automatically. Finding Good replacements to themself is allowed to Good players, but these must be beginners too. Necromancer is Evil and he may freely cooperate/recruit other Evils or to play all present Evil races alone if he wants to. Necromancer can cooperate and to trade with whoever he wants to. Also he may miss how lot of turns he wants.

A neat way to handle the dropout problem.
But what if there are no dropouts? A universe without no Evil? What kind of sick place would that be?

Something you could add: the Evil player can change his race ... Captain Maim has been working on an utility that allows you to change the race at any time during the game (as long as it's a valid race, no negative points), this would be a good game to use this new technology!
Not sure but will probably cause some delay since I assume the .hst file needs to be modded as well, and placed back on AH ... (though it wouldn't have to happen too often)

Quote:

Cheating: I hate cheating. No pregame alliances, no intermediates sneaking in as beginners, no silly tries to search loopholes in the rules. All known and unknown cheats besides split fleet dodge and chaff are forbidden and cheating race will join the Evil immediately. If Evil cheats it will be banned and game continues without Evil.

What? Evil can't cheat?!? What kinda Evil would that be?!?

mch

Report message to a moderator

Micha wrote on Mon, 09 January 2006 10:10

But what if there are no dropouts? A universe without no Evil? What kind of sick place would that be?

Actually it would be funniest beginner game if there are no such "evil" races. Diplomacy is fully allowed to Apprentice Necromancer. He just has no race at start. At worst case he got to wait 6 weeks. However i doubt it.

Quote:

Something you could add: the Evil player can change his race ... Captain Maim has been working on an utility that allows you to change the race at any time during the game (as long as it's a valid race, no negative points), this would be a good game to use this new technology!

Seems fun idea! Especially Race Name must be changed to something evil! Rest of it needs extra thinking and maybe some rules about the amount of modifications and maybe RW points penalties. Otherwise it make immediate that Forces of Evil win the game. For example modifying a 10-15 planet JOAT race into say 4% SD or IS zombie sounds too cruel against poor noobs! I bet that intermediates would have difficulties with that sort of Advanced Evil.

Quote:

What? Evil can't cheat?!? What kinda Evil would that be?!?

Evil may use whatever false perceptions and lies. Evil must not change the laws of nature. The base of my idea is searching ways to make fun game for new players, not to scare the #&%¤&" out of them.

Report message to a moderator

This sounds like a great game - beginner players will get an opportunity to start on a level playing field, but will then get to learn some advanced tactics off some (initially weaker) advanced players. I'd happily volunteer to be Evil when this game gets off the ground (I daresay a lot of people will...)

Kotk wrote on Tue, 10 January 2006 06:58

Quote: Something you could add: the Evil player can change his race ... Captain Maim has been working on an utility that allows you to change the race at any time during the game (as long as it's a valid race, no negative points), this would be a good game to use this new technology! Seems fun idea! Especially Race Name must be changed to something evil! Rest of it needs extra thinking and maybe some rules about the amount of modifications and maybe RW points penalties. Otherwise it make immediate that Forces of Evil win the game. For example modifying a 10-15 planet JOAT race into say 4% SD or IS zombie sounds too cruel against poor noobs! I bet that intermediates would have difficulties with that sort of Advanced Evil.

It strikes me that the abilty to make some changes is certainly important as it seems reasonable to assume that (most of) the undead races will be in a pretty bad situation at the time of switchover.

Econ/Hab:
For the econ and hab pages of the race wizard, limiting changes to a maximum of 2 clicks in each individual field should give plenty of flexibily to improve/fix the design without leaving enough room for (much) exploitation.

Research:
I'm not sure about changes to research abilities - it would strike me as exploitative if a race with prop12 switched from prop cheap to prop expensive. On the other hand a race with expensive weapons might need a helping hand. I guess changes in this section should probably be forbidden - in theory once there are two or three Evil races they should be able to trade for all they need.

LRTs:
It would seem a tad unfair if an race was able to dump IFE in the late-game, or took LSP, so I'd say keep it simple and disallow changes to the LRTs. Of course this means a race might have to put up with MA

PRTs:
All the PRTs can be played 'nasty' so I figure there's no need to let the player(s) change PRTs at all. Keeping the PRT the same is also in keeping with the 'zombie' race feel of the game.

Report message to a moderator

Dogthinkers wrote on Tue, 10 January 2006 00:19

I'd happily volunteer to be Evil when this game gets off the ground (I daresay a lot of people will...)

At least one Necromancer is needed. If there are multiple i can only encourage them to duel for who is most bad and gets the first pick. My idea for these Necromancers is not to expect that they get good races or that they win the game. Why? There are ordinary games. My idea is to offer somewhat different entertainment to them. To be the *yuck* zombie , the dead that suddenly bite back.

Quote:

It strikes me that the abilty to make some changes is certainly important as it seems reasonable to assume that (most of) the undead races will be in a pretty bad situation at the time of switchover.

We probably need the opinion of Captain Maim, how the changes are possible to make. I have also read about his tools, but he has not posted or hosted something recently. It is new ground for me. Evil side has their risks. We never know who will drop out if any. Maybe i monitor such a transactions and changes case by case or even do them myself for first such game. If possible the name change is a yes, PRT/LRT changes no, minor tech/econ/hab changes maybe. What i want to avoid... and i hope that the "evil" side see why ... is less enjoyable game than usual beginner only game for these sturdy Good side players who do not drop out.

Report message to a moderator

Oh wow... Someone wants to make use of my tools! The last set of tools I came out with (Some basic planet editing tools). I found to be... Well... Really fun, but only XDude bothered to ask me about using them. So I didn't think anyone playing a AH game wanted me to make use of th em. I gave it a shot in "Super King of the Hill". If I hosted another game, I'd definately go with tool based thematic, just like I did with S.K.O.T.H.

I'm really glad that my tools are going to be useful in helping to make Stars a little more revitalized.

I'd actually recommend activating LSP for an undead race... And deactivating the +75% tech check box. (If either is opposite to expressed state [on/off].) Because unless I'm mistaken, that race didn't die/become abandoned because it was made to last out through that game. So allowing players (*ahem* senor evil guy) to gain a little extra zip on their race.

This however might simply be on a race by race situation. That is, to say, it might be better if the races were given the chance to mutate based on what their current situation was. Say, a race that's maybe down to a single freighter full of colonists is probably worth just as much alterations as the owner might want. Cause that guy really clung to life and is already almost dead. (new homes, jump up economy and so forth so that he can kick back to some semblence of life after a little while. Would probably be nice.) This actually does sound like an undead race as they would, "Not so much dead as, warped into a reanimated state of life."

In my personal opinion (generally speaking): allowing a +/- 1% or 2% alteration to a race's growth could probably be acceptable. Altering the habs all that much wouldn't be smart unless said race really wasn't interested in ANY of their old planets. That's just a side effect of altering the habs (if your not careful all your current planets might become inhosipitable.) But 2 clicks difference? Meh... Sounds like just a t-bit of terraforming is all that's required there.

I'm just saying, that mutation rules shouldn't be rock solid. The game's such that a well off "evil race" is probably to be given a much lower degree of mutation (extending so low as "simple name change".) Where as a much weaker/battered/near extinct race, ought to be given a much higher degree of mutation. Perhaps even extending all the way to, "I've got nothing left but this generic freighter of people, I might as well mutate into an HE race and settle down anywhere I can." Or maybe he says "I'll just become IS so I can reproduce while I'm looking for a home." Or "I'll become SS so I can slink across the galaxy" or "I'll become IT so I can gate to my new destiny."

Obviously I'm suggesting it's a 1 shot per race deal (but that's just my assumption.)

Also, Lastly to answer a question I'd need:
1. The current HST file (AH doesn't use passworded HST files so that's going to be a breeze.)
2. The password and M file for the race I'm going to alter.
3. The XY file
4. A batch file that expresses the "before" state of the race.
5. A batch file that expresses the "After" state of the race.

However inlue of the actual batch file (seeing as I've got to release the program that creates them... If I really have to I'll (unhappily) write out all the data myself. )

[Updated on: Sat, 14 January 2006 04:54]

Report message to a moderator

Micha wrote on Mon, 09 January 2006 21:10

Something you could add: the Evil player can change his race ... Captain Maim has been working on an utility that allows you to change the race at any time during the game (as long as it's a valid race, no negative points), this would be a good game to use this new technology!

Fun idea, but I'd be a little cautious about games that have been tinkered with like that. I played in a gamesmastered game a few years ago where there were changes like that going on, and eventually the game ended (prematurely from my point of view) when the host couldn't sucessfully generate without a whole lot of strange errors happening.

I'd actually like the idea of just a name change, not the race change anyway (and probably even keep the same number of characters for the name to be on the safe side). Part of the challenge for the evil player would be to wort with the material he/she was given.

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Yes, the more i think of it the more it seems better if i decide available change amount depending on the situation.
PRT and LRT specific changes that cause difficulties i happily forbid.

Exterme case when there is one freighter of pop left then it is technically not a dropout?! It was good novice! Such race probably deserves to rest in peace? Changing it will cause delay in game and then it anyway has no much hope.

I update rules then that dropout got to have more than one alive planet to turn into Evil. Changes are possible only at the event when zombie returns from grave. That will keep necromanting delays low.

To leave some room for name change i also add rule that joining race got to have at least 8 letter name.

Seems that all replies are quite positive so its worth trying to host it in practice?

[Updated on: Sun, 15 January 2006 07:31]

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Captain Maim wrote on Mon, 16 January 2006 04:27

What kind of delay are we looking at here?

The delay may be because the process of change seems not so short:
Good drops out.
Evil gets the race PW and files.
Evil tells what modifications he wants.
We get the HST file.
We modify the HST file like evil said.
We put HST the file back.
Game continues.
So ... if all things are doable it may take some time.

Quote:

I don't think Ron let me have the HST file at the end of SKOTH because I was playing as 2 neutral host races.

You think Ron dont allow it anyway? I do not play in the game i host. I will only use race passwords if i want to see if they cheat. Beginners will play good. If someone drops out then more experienced like Dogthinkers may play evil with the race. I though it just for making beginner game better.

Report message to a moderator

Kotk wrote on Sun, 15 January 2006 13:17

Seems that all replies are quite positive so its worth trying to host it in practice?

Since it is a "normal" game for beginners (until the first one drops, and finding intermediate take-overs won't be a problem) it might be a good time to host one, it seems a few new players popped up the last weeks ... Although it also seems that most of them have problems with the serials they have, and/or problems finding one ...

mch

Report message to a moderator