Most of the old times that remember me will know I love playing AR. The problem is that most game setups don't really favor them as much as outright trying to kill them The problem is the game and how AR's work so radically different from other races.

The idea is not to create a game around AR's since that has been done (should see how it went) but to make sure the playing ground is level. There's a lot of ways to do that, from buffing the AR to changing game settings/rules to penalizing other races. I'd rather look at game settings and rules than buffing or penalizing.

Some obvious ones first
1) no setting orders to kill space station
2) pre-gens will leave an AR behind the other races
3) small or tiny universes will put ARs too close to potential enemies that can easily kill him.
4) sparse universe will put planets too far apart and will maul an AR that needs to spread out his pop
5) accelerated start not selected will help an AR at the start
6) a no ally game will severely limit an AR's survivability since he is an easy target
7) a one winner game is also a danger to an AR but not nearly as bad as a no ally game (some players kill AR out of principle in these type of games)

So I'd love to hear you ideas and also if other races will be impacted by these or other rules/settings

[Updated on: Tue, 14 June 2011 05:41]

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I suggest a Team game in a medium/large universe, depending on number of Teams/players.

I'm not so sure about the "no kill base" restriction, after having seen a couple AR teammates dodge and rebuild in a snap.

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I like the idea of having some games that are friendlier to AR races. The only problem with announcing that is what you are trying to do is someone might design a race specifically to make an early AR kill if they think that their might be a lot of ARs in the game

A game good for ARs might be good to try an SS or WM hoping you get an AR neighbor.

On the other hand I might take a PP race hoping I get an AR neighbor to ally with.

The one item that might help with that is the normal instead of accelerated start. Though that kind of game might deter the non AR players.

A team game can help. Though the team game I recently played in, Dynamic Duos had an AR that got killed early. It might have to be a team game of at least 3, or a team game of 2 with lots of growing room.

You could do teams of 2, and require every team to have one AR. That would level the playing field. That would be an interesting idea for Dynamic Duos 3.

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TT CA must be banned to make AR playable.

In a universe with *too* many planets per player, the 5% and 4% HE will not have significantly less minerals than an AR, since an AR only gets one fountain while they can strip-mine all worlds.

Random Events tend to hurt AR a lot - the Alien Miner and Genesis Device negate their late-game advantage, and most of the others help BBs more than Nubs.

Banning chaff would help AR, since a) chaff doesn't protect starbases, b) with no chaff, their mineral advantage and therefore missile advantage is more powerful.

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All good ideas thanks! An SS or WM is already a big problem for AR's and their main defense in a game like this will be distance. Heck even moving the HW of races to be better separated (equal distances from everyone) is a possibility. The game will not necessarily be specific for AR or overly friendly for an AR, just not actively trying to kill one Many other races can do better with many of these settings and having a win condition of 2 team victory is already halfway to a solid AR game. AR's make great late game allies so the game should ideally be set up with that in mind.

The Accelerated start not selected I think is not something we will try though. It's not big of a gain and will put off a lot of people

In a long-ish game a WM will not do so well without an ally, and if that ally is an AR, just imagine the amount of WM ships you can build? I like the dynamics of diplomacy so I will prolly not make it a fixed team game but that will probably reduce AR friendliness.

This thread though can be good for any future host to know how to make his game setup AR friendlier. This will improve the amount of ARs while not making the game specifically for ARs

Something that I have seen used and have used myself is the RW points left over for each race, starting with CA the most and AR none.

[Updated on: Wed, 15 June 2011 01:47]

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Hi!

AlexTheGreat wrote on Thu, 16 June 2011 04:46

...or some free initial mining ships.

This!
IMO 20 potato bugs (200 mines equivalent) would be enough for an AR to get over initiall mineral crunch. Add just the ban of "attack starbase" order for the first 50 turns and I'm sold.

BR, Iztok

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Ideas are awesome

Updated list of things if you want to make your game more AR friendly. There are things that are set at the game start and cannot change. There are rules that are easily checked/spotted/enforced and there are rules that are difficult or impossible to check/enforce.

Set at beginning of game and cannot be changed/cheated
1) Team game. Either pre-set teams or at least team victory. This will have the immediate effect of an AR being valuable if he can get the fountain up.
2) Size/density of the galaxy. Too small or with too many players can be a deal breaker. Races like SS might also become more favorable on larger/sparser galaxies. Any suggestions on size/density?
3) Random events turned off. Genesis Device, Alien Miner, etc. I like random events myself but they have a big chance of hurting ARs late game.
4) Adding miners. The logic behind this is pretty solid and I would almost demand it in a game that has a 25y or 50y pre-gen. My tests show ridiculous mineral advantage over AR by any terrestrial race. Combine that with the resource advantage and terrestrials will walk over ARs completely even with a strong teamie.
5) Accelerated start. I'd rather not disable this as it slows down the game.
6) Clustering. Something that has not been discussed yet, I think it will help ARs a little bit?

Rules that are easily spotted/enforced
1) Attack starbase. If the enemy ships go straight for the starbase and ignores everything else then it's pretty obvious.
2)Points left over for each race depending on how the host perceives each races' strengths or by standard consensus or on how good the player is. The races are not balanced and many times CA is just plainly banned
3)Chaff could make starbases more vulnerable but I think it's a valid tactic. Maybe some more discussion over this?

Rules that are difficult to spot/enforce
1) Many of the cheats and trick in THE LIST are not as easy to spot or even be sure it was intentional or not. This is pretty normal in every game ever so not much we can do about that.

Basically just need some discussion on size/density and perhaps chaff/random event and I'll make a game.

[Updated on: Fri, 17 June 2011 04:05]

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ForceUser wrote on Fri, 17 June 2011 17:58

6) Clustering. Something that has not been discussed yet, I think it will help ARs a little bit?

If you mean Galaxy Clumping, it favours IFE. Almost all ARs have IFE. Almost all other races have IFE as well. Since the main help is on scouts, I'd say it helps AR a little more, since AR merely needs to get a coloniser to a planet to make use of it.

Additionally, the main race type that often doesn't have IFE is -f, and -f is AR's worst nightmare, so it helps indirectly there as well.

Quote:

2)Points left over for each race depending on how the host perceives each races' strengths or by standard consensus or on how good the player is. The races are not balanced and many times CA is just plainly banned

Regarding CA...

The classic narrow-hab TT CA monster becomes much more powerful in an uncrowded galaxy. Hence, if you want AR to be on a level playing field, TT CA must be banned, since uncrowding the galaxy to help AR helps them more (more time to get TT 30 up and become invincible).

Quote:

3)Chaff could make starbases more vulnerable but I think it's a valid tactic. Maybe some more discussion over this?

Well, chaff only disadvantages starbases if Kill Starbase is allowed, since Kill Starbase ignores chaff. So if Kill Starbase is banned you don't need to ban chaff.

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[Updated on: Fri, 17 June 2011 06:57]

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Ok, so no penalty point system thingy then

Just to reiterate then, this is about making the playing field level with the other races, not to give AR a super advantage. The idea is that everyone can still play whatever rave they want and not feel that they have been nerfed in any way.

I do understand that certain races will not be in its "natural environment" A WM naturally wants its neighbors to be close for a quick kill. IT and SS will thrive in a long distance spread out planets galaxy. Even IS will not be negatively influenced by long travel times. An SD will have to make larger minefields to cover all its territory so maybe a negative there. HE will suffer without gates since its space will be bigger than normal and difficult to defend. PP packets will have longer travel time and easier interception by enemies.

There's positives and negatives for each race in every setup. It just seems AR has more negatives than positives in the majority of game setups. Terrestrial races are practically identical compared to the differentness that is AR and that is why I'm just trying to find a good setup that will not kill an AR outright.

If you guys feel that another race like PP or SS needs a buff then that's fine. the problem is if a race like that needs a game setup opposite from AR's ideal or even semi-good setup then there's nothing to do except the point system. Or come with ideas, that's what this thread's about, IDEAS.

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[Updated on: Fri, 17 June 2011 17:28]

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ForceUser wrote on Fri, 17 June 2011 23:44

to have to cry and scream the whole game long and still die because it's the local JoaT's rule to kill every AR he meets in every game because he can.

Perhaps you haven't met the right kind of JoaT yet.

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Most likely!

Well I think I've got all the info I need, just wondering about the size/density. I guess it depends on the amount of players interested.

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ForceUser wrote on Fri, 17 June 2011 19:45

Most likely! Well I think I've got all the info I need, just wondering about the size/density. I guess it depends on the amount of players interested.

The # of payers matters of course. I think a Medium/Packed with about 6 players should work pretty well.

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