Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Game ideas for Newbies / returning Oldtimers
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| Re: Game ideas for Newbies / returning Oldtimers |
Sun, 31 December 2006 09:58   |
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 iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| Skaffen wrote on Sun, 31 December 2006 15:09 |
having returned to Stars after a 5+ year or so break Iīd like to get going again in one or two PBEMs.
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Great! Welcome back! 
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Now to the actual question: What game parameters should be used to get an "interesting" game going, especially for the newbies as not to frighten them off? Iīm thinking along the following lines ...
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Good thingking. My suggestion: not too many stars per player. I'd recommend 30-40. Anything less has increased risk of bad hab draw, anything more has a big risk of players dropping because of overwhelming MM. Also not too big universe. Medium sounds good, but for 6 players it's IMO too big.
I'd allow it, but with severe limitations: NO TT, bio cheap, one immunity and NO ALLIES (CA player may not set anybody to friend).
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JOAT maybe banned too or with limitations. Maybe canīt take NAS?
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Good one. You might also require some 50 RW points unspent for every JoaT, and 30 for IS. If the uni would be medium, also the same for IT. This way you'd discourage the use of usual econ PRTs, and maybe get more different PRTs. BTW you should forbid detonating minefields until 2450. 
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-Expensive tech? The idea being that this will encourage some earlier tech warfighting to learn the basics better and prevent the game from turning into a race for armageddons only. Then again this might encourage a -f WM basically attacking from turn one...
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... and losing after turn 40 by alliance of all his surviving neighbours, or at turn 60 by armageddon BBs wiping out his jugg DNs. In slow-tech games are -fs at distinctive disadvanatage. OTOH you'll get less variety in races designs if you'll create such a game. 
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-Maybe penalties during race creation for returning oldtimers / intermediate players?
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Hummm... I've heard of such debates, but I don't recommend such a mixture. Even beginners and advanced beginners don't mix well, the returning players knowing the tricks are all the different bunch altogether.
One solution could be you should allow only one ally through the course of the game, and that ally should be of the different skill level. OFC skill levels should be known at the start of the game. With an ally I mean the only partner one can have through the course of the game for any purpose: tech trading, intersettling, giving ships and stargate travel... With others there could be only a border agreement and NAP, nothing else. OFC the one who'll generate the game should check for players' positions so they'd be evenly spread experience-wise.
 . Quite a lot of demands to set up a good game. I wish you luck with it. 
BR, Iztok
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| Re: Game ideas for Newbies / returning Oldtimers |
Mon, 01 January 2007 16:15 |
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| Skaffen wrote on Mon, 01 January 2007 18:37 |
Thanks for the quick answer, some good points to ponder.
One question though: Since when have IS been considered so strong that they warrant a penalty in race creation? Are they really that powerful? Especially with overpop not working like in old strategy articles (50% efficiency for upto 300%)...
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Hmm? Overpop works.... 50% resources from pop from 100% to 300% capacity.
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| Re: Game ideas for Newbies / returning Oldtimers |
Wed, 03 January 2007 20:50 |
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Oh I don't know... Overpop for AR can be profitable too... Supposing of course, that they had the absurd amount of spare pop needed to overpop those 3,000,000 pop deathstars.... 
[Updated on: Wed, 03 January 2007 20:51] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Game ideas for Newbies / returning Oldtimers |
Wed, 03 January 2007 22:46 |
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Greets Skaffen,
don't be irritated that so far Itzoks post is the only one really answering your initial post but he has just summed it up nicely.
| Skaffen wrote on Sun, 31 December 2006 15:09 |
Hi everyone,
Anyway, thatīs the circle weīre aiming for: returning oldtimers (anyone who kept playing regularly the last 5 years will be way too good... ;) ) and the few relatively new players that might be interested but should at least be able to run decent economies in testbeds and beat the AI easily.
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Great!
We urgently need to enlarge the player-base for Stars! again and since serial codes are available again
http://starsautohost.org/sahforum/index.php?t=msg&th=115 8&rid=1&S=61fac869d52c83dced0186aa5dfbe475&pl_vi ew=&start=0#msg_29817
So you have to cope with at least 2 different skill levels. All of them will have in common that they will have problems to rate themselves as you said already about yourself. I am a returning oldtimer myself and when I left the game 5 years ago I would had rated myself as advanced beginner. Now in my 3rd game after returning, in a relative rating to the players I have met in those games I guess I need to raise this rather to a advanced status. I got the general impression that race design has improved a lot in comparison to the old days while strat & tact of warfare against humans (and NOT AIs) has declined. Thus, IMHO, oldtimers fare better than they think.
| iztok wrote on Sun, 31 December 2006 15:58 |
One solution could be you should allow only one ally through the course of the game, and that ally should be of the different skill level.
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Good idea. But difficult to do without pregame-alliances and those aren't the right thing for a beginner-game.
| Skaffen wrote |
What game parameters should be used to get an "interesting" game going, especially for the newbies as not to frighten them off? I donīt think people will stick around if they get wiped out in turn 30 by some -f WM or CA monster while they were still getting to learn the ropes in a real game. It also shouldnīt be a game of 7 variants of JOAT battling it out because people were following Jasonīs old Monster articles...
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In my experience you don't frighten beginners off because they get beaten. A bigger threat is to bore them off. So the main task is to get them hooked by a thrilling game with much action. And since every beginner makes horrible mistakes, it doesn't make sense to have a game where they are stuck with those mistakes for 6 month or even longer.
| Skaffen wrote |
-Some room to expand to discourage immediate wars but not too much as not to overwhelm people. Maybe something like medium normal universe for 8-10 players?
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Depending on what you judge "immediate wars", stress the points which make it so much more interesting to play with humans than against AIs.
That's diplomacy, alliances and humans being much nastier enemies than AIs and not so easily to predict.
I would go for a game in which first skirmishes should be expected rather soon (adds to the thrill), in a ACC BBS game let's say skirmishes as early as 2420 or even before, first real battles around 2430, game should be decided around 2450-60. If you go for a usual turn schedule of 5 turns per week until 2430 and then 3 turns per week... a game decided at 2460 will have lasted for 16 weeks, almost 4 month. Anything longer and you get into the summer (if you aren't one of those weird Aussies) and many will be away for holidays. 4 month is also the maximum a beginner should be expected to stick to a game when he already knows what a multitude of things he wants to do better in the next game (hooked).
Small games tend to be faster and that's good for the learning curve. Big long games are for those who know what they commit themselves to (a game which will eat up quite some time over almost a full year) and who aren't prey to simple beginner mistakes.
All my last games were: small galaxy, packed, 6-9 players, ACC BBS... and they definetly were fun and got me dragged back to Stars. To all our regret
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| Re: Game ideas for Newbies / returning Oldtimers |
Thu, 04 January 2007 11:16 |
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| Dralix |
 | Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 4
Registered: September 2006 | |
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I'll start by saying that I'm one of those returning oldtimers, back after at least a 5 year absence. Before leaving, I'd have called myself intermediate, but that would have probably been stretching it a bit.
If nothing else, my initial reaction to the community is that the types of games I enjoyed before are frowned upon now. For instance, lliance victories are frowned upon, early wars are encouraged over an initial building period.
Case in point ...
| Altruist wrote on Wed, 03 January 2007 20:46 |
I would go for a game in which first skirmishes should be expected rather soon (adds to the thrill), in a ACC BBS game let's say skirmishes as early as 2420 or even before, first real battles around 2430, game should be decided around 2450-60. If you go for a usual turn schedule of 5 turns per week until 2430 and then 3 turns per week... a game decided at 2460 will have lasted for 16 weeks, almost 4 month. Anything longer and you get into the summer (if you aren't one of those weird Aussies) and many will be away for holidays. 4 month is also the maximum a beginner should be expected to stick to a game when he already knows what a multitude of things he wants to do better in the next game (hooked).
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Now by no means am I calling out Altruist here, but skirmishes as early as 2420 don't really thrill me. It's just not the way I like to play. Someone will surely tell me (again) to change my play style. Well, no. Different people have different play styles and enjoy different things.
My point to the topic of this thread is that if you're looking for the ultimate game setup that will attract and enthrall all the newbies or returning oldtimers, don't bother. I suggest you set up a game that you think will be fun, and if others agree, they'll join.
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| Re: Game ideas for Newbies / returning Oldtimers |
Thu, 04 January 2007 14:31 |
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| Skaffen |
 | Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 90
Registered: December 2006
Location: Germany | |
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| Altruist wrote on Thu, 04 January 2007 04:46 |
Greets Skaffen,
don't be irritated that so far Itzoks post is the only one really answering your initial post but he has just summed it up nicely.
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Donīt worry, Iīm used to the dynamics of such discussion groups...
Actually that wouldnīt be a problem, I bought 4 licenses and my collegue has 5 as we wanted to recruit people even back then. I remember that I got a *huge* envelope back then (at least A3) with nothing but 3 CDs and three license stickers in it.
So in case anyone is interested in playing and doesnīt have a license we can get started immediately, Iīd only request that the number isnīt used in other games without prior approval to avoid potential conflicts.
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In my experience you don't frighten beginners off because they get beaten. A bigger threat is to bore them off. So the main task is to get them hooked by a thrilling game with much action. And since every beginner makes horrible mistakes, it doesn't make sense to have a game where they are stuck with those mistakes for 6 month or even longer.
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Probably a valid point, I hadnīt really considered the time factor and now that you mention it I think thatīs one of the reasons the only real large game I ever played in stopped, people were saddled with really bad race designs and as soon as scores became public my pretty standard IT stuck out like the plague.
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Depending on what you judge "immediate wars", stress the points which make it so much more interesting to play with humans than against AIs.
That's diplomacy, alliances and humans being much nastier enemies than AIs and not so easily to predict.
I would go for a game in which first skirmishes should be expected rather soon (adds to the thrill), in a ACC BBS game let's say skirmishes as early as 2420 or even before, first real battles around 2430, game should be decided around 2450-60. If you go for a usual turn schedule of 5 turns per week until 2430 and then 3 turns per week... a game decided at 2460 will have lasted for 16 weeks, almost 4 month. Anything longer and you get into the summer (if you aren't one of those weird Aussies) and many will be away for holidays. 4 month is also the maximum a beginner should be expected to stick to a game when he already knows what a multitude of things he wants to do better in the next game (hooked).
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Again a valid point, I still maintain people shouldnīt get wiped out after 20 turns but waiting too long for the conflicts to start is probably also boring.
Thanks for the input,
Andreas / Skaffen
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