'llo

(For the fantasy people) beep-beep-bedeep-beep-beep... In the news this hour: The universe has been infected by a strange off-yellow radiation which causes intelligent people to think slowly. The more intelligent you are, the slower it makes you think. Einstien was seen taking an hour to make a cup of coffee, and Gomer Pile has set a new crossword time of 35 seconds.(fade to green)


The premise of this game is to provide a means for average players to compete with better players without reducing the challenge for the better players. This will be achieved in two ways:
1)By players skipping turns according to their game rank.
2)By restrictions on diplomatic relations.


REGISTERED Version JRC4 Patch will be used.
Turn generation dependant on player rank. See below.
Turns sent via Email. Mime encoding preferred.
Host will generate turns - AUTOHOST WILL NOT BE USED.
Turns initally generated daily at 11pm-midnight NZDT(GMT+12(13?))
Slowdown on player request or host whim. Holidays will not be recognised without prior request.
Minimum 7 players.
All player levels invited.
Host will not be playing.
Universe size & density by player vote. See below.
Distant Player positions.
Accelerated bbs play.
Chaff & split fleet dodge allowed only.
Winner by 1st place player (non)vote. See below.
Public Player Scores after 20 years.
At least 100 years must pass before a winner is declared.
There will be only one declared winner.
Passwords are optional.


When PPS kicks in(20 years), players will be organised into 4 groups.
Group 1: The 1st place player
Turns sent out every four years.
No Allies. At least 3 enemies.

Group 2: The remaining top third of players
Turns sent out every three years.
Up to 1 Ally each. At least 2 enemies.

Group 3: The second third of players
Turns sent out every two years.
Up to 2 Allies each. At least 1 enemy.

Group 4: The lower third of players
Turns sent out every year.
No diplomatic restrictions.

As long as there are enough players left, there will always be at least one player in each category. In the case of rounding uncertainty, the lower rank will be assigned.


Send race files to: gible_at_orcon_dot_net_period_nz (crossed fingers)
Please send me your universe size/density preference along with your race file and password(if you have one). If your preference changes with the number of players specify which for how many players. (eg 7-10 huge,sparse 11 tiny,dense,12+small medium.) Players will only be given a place upon receipt of a valid(not corrupt) race file(& password.)


After 100 years the 1st place player may declare themselves the winner via in-game message, if no other player objects before their next turn (4 years) then I will declare them the winner and congrats accordingly.


I will be checking for other cheats. Especially the False Public Player Scores cheat. At the host's discretion, the penalty for cheating will be 10 years skipped regardless of rank. If you're not sure what constitutes cheating, see here. Target List Overload is also included in that list.


Did I miss anything?
Yup. The rounding thing. d'oh

[Updated on: Sat, 19 July 2003 07:49]

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Quote:

How often will the turn frequency be adjusted after 2420?

"Slowdown on player request or host whim."
- If you're having trouble getting your turns in and need more time, ask for it.

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How will the "normal" strategy of IS freighter growth and dropping down periodically to produce or research be dealt with. Will that be considered a cheat?

No. The false PPS cheat specifically refers to manually uploading pop and dropping them as a WP 1 order.
I approve of that IS strategy

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How about building more facs than you can currently use early on then fully staffing them later in the game?

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Or just storing your pop in freighters for an extended period of time?

These two are something of a grey area. I'm inclined to allow them as individually they're both valid strategies. If you're exporting pop as for colonisation then I'd approve of the former. If you're building an invasion fleet then the latter is a normal method. etc.
The two together is suspicious, but the key to stars as I understand it is economic growth and if you want to give away compounding resourses by leaving your pop idle in freighters thats your problem.

Pending a really good reason why I should change my mind

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d'oh! I should have known that

Each player will be re-evaluated separately on the year I send out their turn. Its not a matter of them delaying when they send in their orders, but rather when I send out their turn file. Thus any mistakes will be mine.

EG:
Assuming 7 players.
(Group 1:#1 Group 2:#2 Group 3:#3,#4 Group 4:#5,#6,#7)

at 2420:
Player X is #1. With their turn file I will inform them to make plans for 4 years and the next turn they will recieve will be at 2424. (It will show "Note: 4 years of data read.")

Player Y is #2. With their turn file I will inform them to make plans for 3 years and the next turn they will recieve will be at 2423. (It will show "Note: 3 years of data read.")

Player Z is #6. With their turn file I will inform them to make plans for 1 year and the next turn they will recieve will be at 2421. (It will not show anything)


at 2421:
Player Z has moved up to #2(damn he's good ). With this turn file I will inform them to make plans for 3 years and the next turn they will recieve will be at 2424. (It will show "Note: 3 years of data read.")


at 2423:
Player Y is now #6. With this turn file I will inform them to make plans for 1 year and the next turn they will recieve will be at 2424. (It will not show anything)


at 2424:
Player X has slipped to #2. With this turn file I will inform them to make plans for 3 years and the next turn they will recieve will be at 2427. (It will show "Note: 3 years of data read.")

Player Z has slipped back to #4(not so good after all). With this turn file I will inform them to make plans for 2 years and the next turn they will recieve will be at 2426. (It will show "Note: 2 years of data read.")


and so on....

Submitting turns early won't be an option as the host dialog would say they're on the wrong year(found that out the hard way).

And of course...making plans for more than the specified number of years is perfectly OK.

Players with delayed turns will have to be careful to get their turns in within the (24 hour) generation cycle or they would trigger the wrong year error.(but you all knew that )

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Good.
That looks like a perfectly reasonable system.

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Bump

Two races in, one expert, one beginner.
Two more promised (watch me exhale).

Any more takers? What? You have lives?!?

Gible
(Not really that cynical...It's only been a week.)

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Hello out there!

I'm as n00b as can be (at least when it comes to mulitplayer stars!). After having joined the mailing list i wondered if i could take part in a game. this one here sounds interesting to me since all players seem to have the same chances. bad thing is i don't know whom to send my race file and how to send it (link would be appreciated...).
oh, i just realized that i wasn't supposed to do anything by myself. the message i got said i should wait for some reply.
you don't want to see me begging, do you?

i'm as good as in (the thread says free for all, even beginners; good thing is: there's no word of "people with bad humour")

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Quote:

oh, i just realized that i wasn't supposed to do anything by myself. the message i got said i should wait for some reply.

Which message was that?

Quote:

you don't want to see me begging, do you?

Well since you mention it...

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After having joined the mailing list i wondered if i could take part in a game.

The List stars-sn-games at yahoogroups dot com mailing list I presume.

Quote:

Bad thing is i don't know whom to send my race file and how to send it (link would be appreciated...).

If you scroll up to the first message in this thread you'll find that information there. But just for you...

Send race files to: gible_at_orcon_dot_net_period_nz
Please send me your universe size/density preference along with your race file and password(if you have one). If your preference changes with the number of players specify which for how many players. (eg 7-10 huge,sparse 11 tiny,dense,12+small medium.) Players will only be given a place upon receipt of a valid(not corrupt) race file(& password.)

And no. I will not turn that into a link. I like the amount of spam I get(none).

If you really can't manage it just attach the race file to a PM here at the forum.

Quote:

good thing is: there's no word of "people with bad humour")

Well I call those people "grumpy"

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If you know how to build a good HP race, go for it.

EDIT: Removed race advice from public view, jst in case you use it and someone remembers...

[Updated on: Tue, 29 July 2003 16:30]

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Well me and my lazy, busy bum should probably have been stuffing ads for this game under everyone's nose but well...I hate spam and did I mention I'm lazy and busy?
Mostly I just hate pushing stuff...god help me I have to find a job soon.

Anyways...A plug for players..have 3 want 7

If all else fails I'm closing the offer in two weeks and starting a duel.

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Take a look at the Order of Events, I think you'll find that no bug, as you describe it, exists.

Having said that...if it can be proved to exist I'll add it to the list of "features"

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The "normal" strategy of IS races is to load population into frieghters over worlds to gain a higher growth rate(planet growth from the pop on the planet + "in space" growth from the pop in the frieghters)...the downside to this is that the population in the freighters doesn't contribute to resources or mines. So when you want something in a hurry(tech or ships etc) you can drop the feighted pop back to the planet temporarily for the extra resources. With enuf pop growth in the frieghters to offset the overcrowding death rate you can maintain your worlds at 300% population = lots of resources

I erred in my previous reply, the PPS "cheat" is when you manually unload pop and load it again as a WP1 order. This is usually done with pairs of planets. How it works is that resources etc are calculated in the middle of the turn when the pop is on the planet, but the score is calculated at the end of the turn when the pop is in frieghters. Thus your score will be lower than it should be and the other players will think you less of a threat than you really are.

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Well, that PPS dodge could give a huge advantage to any1 that uses it, it would kind of ruin the idea of this setup...

Presumably we should also ban PP races? Whoever is in first place will get nailed by huge packets otherwise - 4 turn reaction time = no opportunity to intercept

Given *that*... The only other thing slowing me down, is my fear of chaff/split fleet dodge... I guess I'll just have to learn how to deal with those pretty bloody quick

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4 turns should be plenty of time to react imo...unless its a *REALLY* big packet

to beat chaff use beamers..

to beat the split fleet dodge. split your fleet

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hmmm a warp 10 packet can move 350 light years in 4 turns...

The top player only gets to file orders once every 4 turns.

That means someone could hit a planet owned by the top player up to 350 light years away before the top player EVEN KNEW IT WAS COMING!

[Updated on: Tue, 02 September 2003 01:06]

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kewl eh?

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This game offer has expired.

My thanx and apologies to the 3 players who sent me race files...maybe next time

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