| Game Idea: n00b wrangling |
Sat, 29 November 2008 22:20  |
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 Effluviant Walrus |
 | Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US | |
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So the basic premise of the game would be that an experienced player playing IS must defend 4 beginners playing ARs from 2 intermediate-advanced SS players.
The universe would be remapped to look something like:
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - R - - - R - - - -
S - - - - - I - - - - - S
- - - - R - - - R - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
S = SS, R = AR, I = IS; map not to scale necessarily, but it would be wider than it is high
The ARs would start and play for short while. Then the SS players will arrive, each with a fleet of cloaked warships, a few LFs full of pop and minerals, and a nubian "flagship" with full cloaking and a max tech missile loadout. The game goes on for a bit, and if the timing is right, just as the ARs start taking losses from the SS, the IS then appears at its HW (previously with full factories and mines, but only 100 pop) with a fleet with pop, mins, scanner ships, and minelayers, but no warships.
The SS's goal will be to drive the ARs out of the galaxy. Being rather timid races, the AR's population will get scared and leave (the player must space all their pop and scrap their ships) if either a) their HW SB is destroyed, or b) they lose more than a certain % of their population within a time frame (maybe 50% within 25 turns?).
The IS-AR team's goal will be to either a) destroy both of the SS player's flagships, or b) survive for say, 100 turns.
Some possible rules and restrictions:
- The IS player can never build any warships. They must act in a supplementary and advisory role only.
- While the IS and AR's are on a team, the IS will not be allowed to have the AR's upload passwords or look at there .m files directly. They also cannot contact the AR's before their race "appears."
- A certain radius around the IS HW is reserved for them. They cannot colonize outside of it, but no one else besides them can colonize within it.
- The SS players are nomadic races and are not used to staying in any one place for too long. They cannot lay minefields or have more than 25 defenses on a planet. They should not have many planets, but should be able to establish a normal empire; maybe they should have at least one immunity and no more than 1 in 8 or so habs?
- To be fair and depending on whether the AR's exceed or fail to meet expectations, either the host (as long as they're not playing) or some other third party would have limited powers to adjudicate the game and make minor changes to the rules. For example, they could let the IS or SS come in +/- 5 years from when they were scheduled to, or let the IS start building warships after 2 ARs are dead; stuff like that.
Thoughts? Ideas? Any interest? I'm in a billion and one games right now and so wouldn't be playing, but I thought it might be a fun idea and it would be good to get some beginners some experience with AR.
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| Re: Game Idea: n00b wrangling |
Sat, 29 November 2008 23:09  |
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I think that "their HW SB is destroyed" is critically incompatible with allowing target starbase battle orders.
[Updated on: Sat, 29 November 2008 23:09] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Game Idea: n00b wrangling |
Sat, 29 November 2008 23:35 |
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| Effluviant Walrus |
| Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US | |
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| Combat wrote: |
My 2 cents is that AR may not be the best PRT for beginners. Not just for weakness of SB kill but that AR econ is so much different than any of the other races. Being a beginner myself I have been playing most of the PRTs with others or verses the AI. All except AR because Im not ready to tackle such a odd econ and CA because it seems a bit too powerful. Otherwise I love all the other PRTs and cant wait to use them all in real games. I cant tell you what PRT you should use for the beginners just that to me AR seems like it wont work so well but what do I know. Razz
While I do see your point about getting beginners to practice AR it seems to me that anyone who plays AR is pretty dedicated to that PRT.
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The point is that the beginners will be fish-out-of-water with the ARs. The game should be designed that, if it weren't for the IS player, the AR's would be crushed. The challenge is more for the IS player to salvage the situation from the beginners mistakes  .
Though to give the AR's a decent chance, I was thinking that they would get a decent head start over the more experienced players. Depending on how bad (not to demean the beginners, as I am one myself, but AR's are very hard to play as you said) they are, and how much the SS's start with, I was thinking of somewhere between 30-60 turns of playing before the SS's appear. That's just a wild guess, so the adjudicator would probably have to see some testbed results from each of the players to make things fair. If its still unbalanced, the IS player could come in at the same time a the SS's, rather than after them.
Someone (most likely the IS player) should write up some tips on AR race-design and play for the beginners. After the game starts, there should be no communication between the IS and the beginners until the IS fleet appears.
| gible wrote: |
I think that "their HW SB is destroyed" is critically incompatible with allowing target starbase battle orders.
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Oops, didn't think of that  . Hmm, maybe the adjudicator could just count up the total amount of pop for each AR race on the year when the SS's arrive, and if the total pop of each race ever falls below 40% of that or something, the race has to flee.
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| Re: Game Idea: n00b wrangling |
Sun, 30 November 2008 16:17 |
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| Effluviant Walrus |
| Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US | |
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| perrindom wrote on Sun, 30 November 2008 11:54 |
Just some thoughts:
Why did you pick IS for the White Knight player? I can imagine that SD would be just as suited to help without building warships, or an IT to at least shuttle some minerals around, or a JOAT to provide some techs (electronics for exsample).
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To provide the Tachyon Detector (or scanner or whatever its called), since they are up against SS's.
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is that AR may not be the best PRT for beginners. Not just for weakness of SB kill but that AR econ is so much different than any of the other races. Being a beginner myself I have been playing most of the PRTs with others or verses the AI. All except AR because Im not ready to tackle such a odd econ and CA because it seems a bit too powerful. Otherwise I love all the other PRTs and cant wait to use them all in real games. I cant tell you what PRT you should use for the beginners just that to me AR seems like it wont work so well but what do I know. 
