Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » What game rules mean less MM during play?
| What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Mon, 16 January 2012 23:24  |
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 Marduk |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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A lot of people complain they don't have enough time for much micro-management and I've seen plenty of dropouts due to time constraints. So if one wanted a game with as little MM as is reasonable, what kind of rules should there be?
No minefields would obviously be a big one, which pretty much removes SD as a viable PRT. This would however be something of a boon to WM races which I think to be a good thing.
All-enemy games and no-communication games lead to less time required to play, though plenty of people would object to either limitation. Still, in addition to less time spent on turns more of the time spent will be on fighting.
What other game rules might be worth considering? Requiring OBRM as a LRT so no one has to worry about remote miners? That would remove AR as thoroughly as no minefields removes SD; I am not sure I like that, and the amount of MM removed isn't that great. Scanning? All I can think of here is limiting everyone to JoaT, so that scouting becomes a trivial process.
Ideas, thoughts, problems you see?
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| Re: What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Tue, 17 January 2012 00:18  |
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Hi ,
you have good ideas but you have missed the main think. The size and dense of the univers.
Play in a tiny spare univers will make the MM real smal becahuse you have not much to manage with you 2 Planets even with minefields and so on .
If you make it a no communication game the game will only need minutes for there turn for a long time.
ccmaster
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| Re: What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Tue, 17 January 2012 21:01 |
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| Marduk |
| Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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| ccmaster wrote on Tue, 17 January 2012 00:18 |
you have good ideas but you have missed the main think. The size and dense of the univers.
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Hmm, too obvious. Couldn't see the universe for all the stars.
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Play in a tiny spare univers will make the MM real smal becahuse you have not much to manage with you 2 Planets even with minefields and so on .
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Tiny sparse? Madness! Or Sparta, I suppose, which amounts to the same thing.
| slimdrag00n wrote on Tue, 17 January 2012 10:26 |
Not using IFE would add tons of brain damaging MM. Fuel Mizer just makes things easier.
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Having the Fuel Mizer engine increases the amount of MM I do - scouts can go farther, and I typically plot out how they will fly until they run out of fuel. So the FM means I am laying out a path of 20+ systems instead of just 8-10 or so. (Perhaps this is a sign of some of that brain damage you mentioned.)
I suppose there would be some reduction of MM because of a reduced need for boosters; but I'm not sure requiring IFE would get rid of that much work. Also, it wouldn't help my MM at all for all the other races to have IFE.
So what by what criteria should rules aimed at reducing MM be judged? Reduction of MM required by the race being played; reduction of MM required for other races because of the race being played; effect on flexibility of race design; effect on options during play; balance between players. Anything else?
For example, banning minefields has potentially huge effects for the first two. It would have a minor negative effect on race design, removing SD as an option mostly negated in my opinion by removing a major weakness in the underpowered WM. As far as options during play, I'd have to say it is a moderate negative here - you lose a defensive option completely, partially offset by not having to worry about enemy minefields. Aside from SD and WM races, this would be perfectly balanced between players aside from play style considerations (it favors aggressive play more than defensive play).
I am against things like requiring the IFE LRT or the JoaT PRT, as both remove flexibility without reducing the MM required of other races. Even in a game setup designed to reduce MM, I don't think it is a good idea to try preventing a player from choosing to do more MM provided their choice doesn't increase the need for it by other players.
The size/density bit and the judging criteria bring to mind some of the other universe creation options. Max minerals would reduce MM a bit - it would remove one of the competing factors in colony selection, pretty much remove the need for any kind of mineral balancing, and allow for more viable options in mine settings. Kind of hurts SS though, as there is (relatively) less pain caused by and less gain from mineral thefts. Similarly it mitigates one of the advantages of IT, gating minerals. Both minor issues, though.
Random events should definately be off from a MM perspective. Also from the perspective of balance between players; the accursed Mystery Trader often plays favorites, and wormholes can make one persons day while ruining anothers. Early meteors can devastate a race.
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| Re: What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Thu, 19 January 2012 16:29 |
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I agree on most things mentioned before:
* university size/density/player number
* no diplomacy / no allies
* helpful PRTs like IT or to a lesser extent JoaT
* helpful LRTs like IFE, ISB might be helpful fuelwise but can also go the other way around
* penetrating scanners
* no chaff (wasn't mentioned so far)
* minefields: can go either way
Minefields help securing a border and forgetting about it until someone starts minesweeping. So you have actually less trouble and MM in comparison to guarding, pinging and keeping an active watch there. But minefields get a hassle for every side if you start laying a multitude of interwoven fields. The suggestion to allow minefields only centered on planets is probably helpful. And completly banning SDs helps a LOT! The fight over SD-minefields can get completly out of hand in terms of time, ship types needed, brain damage; it can become a war in a war: an upwardly openended spiral.
The other thing is, of course, unrelated to rules but to playing style. Just some examples because everybody has or needs to develop an own way to cope.
I love to MM especially during the first 30 or even 40 years. That's ok because the load of orders is still reasonable.
But afterwards, sometime during the latter part of the middle game, you need to adjust your game play to less MM, less perfect logistics. For me that's usually putting even some extra time and efforts into automating logistics, especially mineral and pop balancing but it pays off timewise afterwards. The other thing is to plan your attacks and moves more generous and not on the edge anymore which allows you a bigger error margin. Build lots of freighters, at least 1 per planet and quite some more in duty for your attack fleets and frontier. Same with xports and your all-purpose skirmisher/hunter design. They should be just there when needed regardless wether they might have been lazy for the last 3 turns. With a perfect MM you could probably do the same with just half of all those ships... but at the later game stages you just won't have a perfect MM anymore (or no real life).
As a rule of thumb:
Try to change your game style BEFORE you feel "this is no fun anymore". Do it when you are still motivated to do the necessary MM to automate.
Combine it with some cozy time looking at your map to identify clusters or whole regions for which you declare 1 planet to become your center point from where all operations will start from or all logistics of the cluster are centered on.
Use rather the tables, especially the F3-planet table and its' sort option for pop crowding, starbases, minerals, instead of switching from planet to planet.
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| Re: What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Fri, 20 January 2012 06:51 |
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| m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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I've seen games with simple Victory Conditions based solely on Econ prowess that were activated just before any major shipbuilding or war took place. 
So it is possible to play a long-ish game without needing to worry about Diplomacy, skirmishing, ship design, scouting, laying minefields, spying, packets, Defenses, counterdesigning, chaff, or even mineral balancing. Just watch your score grow until the bell rings. 
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
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| Re: What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Fri, 20 January 2012 11:18 |
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| slimdrag00n | 
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Messages: 630
Registered: January 2009
Location: new york -5 |  
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| Eagle of Fire wrote on Thu, 19 January 2012 19:44 |
Would you consider someone like me who built a freeoffice tabler from scratch and who don't even use an automated mean to write those numbers on his sheets as bad sport too?
There really is a fixed number of times I can repeat the exact same task every single turn before I get bored of it. I don't think I would bother doing it unless I knew for a fact that everybody else would be in the same boat as me... Which I know is not true anyways.
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I never stated it was bad sport? It has never been frowned upon in this community. I said it was personal preference if you like to do so and stated I don't like it which is my opinion. If you read something wrong where I stated it was bad sport let me know which line confused you, I didn't mean to offend you. I am not a good writer so maybe there is confusion of to what I mean.
What I meant by Cheat...
Its like cheating like using a calculator on a Math Test In school where everyone was allowed to use even though you will never have a calculator to help you in real life thus your cheating only your self.
Not cheating like breaking the Rules..
Sure does help with MM, time, and accuracy which I am sure is why lots of people use them.
I sure have gotten good at guessing how much minerals I need to throw, or how many bombers to make. I've been doing it awhile now. I like having that intuition to play with only the game. My win ratio is probably above 95%. I take pride in that.
I feel that way because the game its self does not come with these programs. I stated if your like me using dos box and on windows 64bit 95% of the programs on wiki to down load do not even work thus I can't use calculators even if I tried again. Ill definitely use a program or two in the future, I just wont make a habbit of it. That's about all I can explain, sorry for the confusion, nuff said I think..
On another note back on topic. I don't think anyone mentioned how teams of 3 game takes a lot more time to communicate and coordinate minerals and ships compared to teams of 2. Not to mention the actual MM of ships involved. Almost seems like the time is doubled or tripled to me just by adding that one extra person. Trying to talk and confirm everything with two separate people takes a lot of time waiting for confirm mails. Its definitely a fun game, but heavy on time, especially when the mineral fountain comes up into play.
......
Ranked games: 8-1
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Looking for a practice duel.
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| Re: What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Fri, 20 January 2012 20:40 |
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| Marduk |
| Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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| Altruist wrote on Thu, 19 January 2012 16:29 |
* no chaff (wasn't mentioned so far)
* minefields: can go either way
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Ah, but look at it the other way around. If there are no minefields, there is very little MM involved in chaff because there is no incentive to split them into dozens or hundreds of fleets for crash sweeping.
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The other thing is, of course, unrelated to rules but to playing style. Just some examples because everybody has or needs to develop an own way to cope.
I love to MM especially during the first 30 or even 40 years. That's ok because the load of orders is still reasonable.
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I do the same thing, but that is different. Much of that is voluntary, and while early MM is helpful skimping on it sometimes won't cripple your race. Not directly at least.
| neilhoward wrote on Thu, 19 January 2012 22:16 |
| Marduk wrote on Mon, 16 January 2012 20:24 |
So if one wanted a game with as little MM as is reasonable, what kind of rules should there be?
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Ban ship-building
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Tsk, tsk. I said "as is reasonable"! Ban ship-building... 
One out of five dentists recommends occasional random executions to keep the peasants cowed and servile.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: What game rules mean less MM during play? |
Sat, 21 January 2012 04:07 |
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| craebild |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 568
Registered: December 2003
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark | |
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| neilhoward wrote on Sat, 21 January 2012 03:33 |
1) faster force gens, ala 12 hours or 8 hours
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That won't reduce the MM required to effectively play the race, that just reduces the time available to do that MM.
| neilhoward wrote on Sat, 21 January 2012 03:33 |
2) gen multiple years at the start, like first 5 turns are 4 years each, next five turns 2 years each (two weeks to diplomatic entanglement and 21-28 days to first BB sightings).
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Making the first 5 turns 4 years each doesn't reduce the MM much, it introduces the need to do 4 years of MM in one turn, and the added need for planning to ensure that the necessary tech and infrastructure is in place to perform the necessary ship building at the end of each 4 year stretch. After all, being one tech level short for the necessary ship design will delay things by 4 years instead of 1 year.
Med venlig hilsen / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Christian Ræbild / Christian Raebild
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