Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » How Best to Fast-Forward the Early Game (Blitz, Jump Start, Multi-Turn, etc.)
| How Best to Fast-Forward the Early Game |
Fri, 20 September 2013 12:28  |
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 skoormit |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 665
Registered: July 2008
Location: Alabama | |
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I'm thinking about starting a game similar to No Monsters Allowed sometime in the next couple months.
I would like to shorten as much as possible the calendar time required to play through the very early part of the game.
You probably know what I mean. The early turns do not require very much time for an individual player to play. But with eight people spread out around the world, it is nevertheless uncommon for turns to generate faster than every 24 hours. As a result, the early portion of the game drags on for weeks and weeks in calendar time, during which time nothing very interesting is happening. Scouting. Colonizing. Building mines and factories. Maybe having a minor border skirmish here and there. How long this period lasts depends on the crowdedness of the universe.
There are four ways I know of to shorten the calendar time of the relatively unexciting early game:
1) Change the game parameters
2) Blitz start
3) Jump start
4) Multi-turn start
#1 means to change the game parameters so that conflict happens right away, and the turns are therefore interesting to play. In other words, make the universe smaller or add more players. I don't like games with immediate conflict. I prefer having some wiggle room to start with.
A blitz start means the game starts on a specific day and time and everyone plays turns very fast (<5 minutes or so per turn) for at least a few hours. I've never done a blitz-start with more than 3 players, but I know of many games that started this way back in the day, usually using IRC for the blitz portion and then transferring the game to SAH.
A jump start means that the players start with more stuff than in a standard game. Usually the game host submits orders for each race and generates the turns until the starting conditions are acheived, and then the players take over their own races. The extra stuff can be colonists and/or ships. A common approach is for the players to start with a few colonizer ships, a fleet of freighters with 1 million colonists on board, perhaps a few scouting ships, and a homeworld at 33% of capacity.
A multi-turn start means that for a specified number of turns, multiple years are generated per turn. For example: if the start is five years per turn for 50 years, then you will submit orders on year 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41, and 46, and the other years are "skipped". In the skipped years, your ships and planets are following whatever orders you last submitted. Starting in year 51, you will submit orders each year just like a normal game.
I'm interested in hearing of the experiences of players who have played in games with these types of starts. Is there a type that works better than the others? Are certain types better suited for certain games? What are the unexpected challenges of playing these types of starts? And of course, are there other ways to acheive the desired effect (fast-forwarding through the early game in order to get to the good stuff as soon as possible)?
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| Re: How Best to Fast-Forward the Early Game |
Sat, 21 September 2013 09:01  |
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skoormit wrote on Fri, 20 September 2013 18:28[...]the early portion of the game drags on for weeks and weeks in calendar time, during which time nothing very interesting is happening. Scouting. Colonizing. Building mines and factories. Maybe having a minor border skirmish here and there.
The first 40 turns I enjoy the most. And usually I try to conquere my first HW before 2430. Cosidering this, there isn't really much what I'd like to see skipped or speeded up.
Comparing what I like about Stars and what other dislike, I often think we are talking about different games. Which perhaps shows that Stars as a game is more versatile than thought.
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| Re: How Best to Fast-Forward the Early Game |
Sat, 21 September 2013 19:51 |
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| m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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For many races and games the earliest turns are also the most critical, the swim-or-sink moves, the go-ahead or fall-backwards, the only time you can really play unburdened by excess micromanagement, when no report is unimportant, when each and every planet and fleet can be properly cared for... 
I've played some "multi-turn" games and they never felt really right. What was missing outweighed the gains. 
"Blitz" games would quickly become not-quite-Stars for me too, as after all I've never been eager to spend my time playing real-time "strategy" games. 
As for "right-away-conflict"... meh, isn't that what RTS games are about? 
[Updated on: Sat, 21 September 2013 19:58]
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
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| Re: How Best to Fast-Forward the Early Game |
Sun, 22 September 2013 18:06 |
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| iztok |
| Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
You have several options to fasten-up very early game:
- allow players to submit first turn, then force-gen about 20 turns. In "No AccBBS" game this will make most HWs' queues close to green. OFC players should not be allowed to move ships while game's force-generating turns. Such start would also force players to make some unusuall decisions about race design... 
- multi-turns are also OK, but 5-turns jumps are a bit too hard. Better make them shorter, like first 2 turns normal, then 6 3-turns gen, then 5 2-turns gen, and you're at turn-30 in 2 weeks, if game generates each 24 hour.
- you can also announce, that first 20 turns will be played in a single 3 hours sitting, starting at fixed time and generating each 10 minutes, but that's IMO already too demanding. Stars! is PbEM, not RTS. 
HTH and BR, Iztok
[Updated on: Sun, 22 September 2013 18:21] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: How Best to Fast-Forward the Early Game |
Tue, 15 October 2013 14:50 |
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| skoormit |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 665
Registered: July 2008
Location: Alabama | |
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iztok wrote on Sun, 22 September 2013 17:06Hi!
- multi-turns are also OK, but 5-turns jumps are a bit too hard. Better make them shorter, like first 2 turns normal, then 6 3-turns gen, then 5 2-turns gen, and you're at turn-30 in 2 weeks, if game generates each 24 hour.
This I like. I'll probably use something like this in the next game I host. Thanks for the tip!
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