iztok wrote on Fri, 25 March 2005 15:22

You sure it was only 100 turns gen?

Yes, it was 100 turns gen ... however occurs i have damaged my memory otherwise it was 5% SD.

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[Updated on: Sat, 26 March 2005 00:33]

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mlaub wrote on Fri, 25 March 2005 12:34

Steve1 wrote on Fri, 25 March 2005 09:30 The biggest concern is how you would reach the 512 fleet limit within 120 years. "Perhaps" you could do this with HE as the colonisers are cheaper (which would make the discussion invalid), but not sure it could be achieved with IS. Don't know how you'd get around that, but would love to hear suggestions I bet this is not a huge issue, if you can inhabit enough planets before Y2420. Red planets would probably be the most predictable, and easiest way to plan this. 20 reds would be more than enough if you built some of the scouts at your HW. You should be able to time things so that each planet produces 20+ individual ships, if necessary (Q can hold 40 items). Make 10 scout designs (engine only), and plan your Q accordingly. You could get away with just 2 designs, but your margin of error shrinks a bit. Hitting the 512 fleet limit might take 30 years...but who cares? That leaves 70 years to grow in space. That is a *long* time! You would probably end up with a bunch of freighters that are empty at the end of the jump...but that would be a good thing. -Matt

Hmmm ... this is an interesting means to achieve the 512 fleet limit, but you would need to build enough initial freighters at your HW to supply sufficient colonists to each planet. Each planet would have to be able to produce the scouts within a reasonable timeframe and would need enough minerals to do so (either from their own mines or delivered from the HW).
There's also the cost of all this extra infrastructure that could instead be put into colonisation of green planets.
Remember too that you still need to max out your tech (or close to it) and that the floating orgy will not be contributing much to your research (excess pop will overflow to the HW).

Any extra colonists sent to these red worlds could instead have been utilised at the HW or delivered to greener pastures and that's initial research into terraforming that you're losing.
Not saying the strategy isn't viable but might be difficult to implement successfully.

One final thought is that as your colonisers/freighters successfully colonise worlds that's less ships you'd have in your fleet and more scouts that you'd need to build. I suspect it would take much longer than 30 years to attain the 512 limit.

[Updated on: Sat, 26 March 2005 00:42]

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Steve1 wrote on Sat, 26 March 2005 07:31

Hmmm ... this is an interesting means to achieve ... blah blah blah

Steve1, you expect full foolproof recipe, step by step, with full profitability calculations how to win announced game under hand with a simple trick i suggested? SERIOUSLY? No one will join it on such case. Matt actually explained it too well already.

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Kotk wrote on Sat, 26 March 2005 05:54

Steve1, you expect full foolproof recipe, step by step, with full profitability calculations how to win announced game under hand with a simple trick i suggested? SERIOUSLY? No one will join it on such case. Matt actually explained it too well already.

Well if you're offering to send me the details directly I'd be okay with that too. Why should I testbed anything when people hand out the information so freely

Besides that I think that most people whom would choose to play this game will need an incentive to take IS, as its biggest advantage is mitigated IMO. Most of the other races are far easier to set up, can achieve max tech just as easily and don't have to wear a serious impediment like 25% higher Weap cost.

With allies it's still viable to select a race like WM. 25% lesser cost of Weap makes it selectable and allies can supply the minelayers. In some ways it's a better choice than IS ...
In fact Joat, CA, HE, PP, SD, WM and IT are all good races for this universe. You should be able to get good results from any of them and they won't be as time consuming or difficult as IS to set up. Of course you don't have to grow your floating orgy and you could still max your tech, but then there would be no point choosing IS at all.

[Updated on: Sat, 26 March 2005 19:50]

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Kotk wrote on Sat, 26 March 2005 04:54

Matt actually explained it too well already.

Sorry, I tried to be vague...

I'll shut up now.

-Matt

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Quote:

Only a fool or someone willing to roll the dice would adopt that attitude with a 3i HE.

A percentage of your colonies would have low minerals, but you'd still have those contributing something towards your research. It would be a pity to reach 2520 only to see a whole stack of nearby planets that no one had colonised due to low minerals on those worlds.
When you consider that a single coloniser with 1000 pop onboard can almost fill the planet within 100 years (assuming 5% or 6% tri-immune HE), then it's still worth your while. A 6% tri-immune Joat or IS might do alright too (haven't tested it and am making an assumption, so no flaming if I'm wrong )

Edit: Well, just tested a 6% tri-immune Joat and didn't think much of it. Perhaps another configuration would do better


Please note:
I'm not necessarily advocating the non-use of scouts for a tri-immune race, but you can do limited scanning and get away with it.
Same applies to a CA TT. With the right hab settings you can eventually make all planets green, so whilst scanning every planet you want to colonise would be desireable, it's not essential.

[Updated on: Sun, 27 March 2005 03:57]

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Quote:

Sorry, I tried to be vague... I'll shut up now.

I think you guys have overated IS for this universe. I still maintain that 25% higher cost for Weap is a serious impediment.
Let's look at some of the other races as a comparison:

HE - Pretty well goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway just in case:
Tri-immune HE (anywhere from 4-6% would probably suit although I didn't actually test 4%). Really cheap initial colonisers and can fill the planet within 100 years with no extra pop required.
Oh yeah and the Flux Capacitors are a nice touch.

WM - Allies should get you around the problem of no minefields. You get to identify enemy ships on sight, extra 1/4 battleboard movement, you can build powerful missile boats and 25% less on Weap. Not such a bad race for this universe.

Joat - Early tech start, larger pop per planet than most races and very cool pen-scanning. What more can I say ....

CA - Choose TT and every planet will become green for your race. Very, very helpful to your allies also!
Did I mention de-terraforming enemy worlds?

IT - Not as powerful as usual, but has two starting worlds and by 2520, unlimited gates. Pretty good for a huge universe.

SD - Hmmm ... lovely minefields. A good kickarse race.

PP - Two starting planets and the best packet flingers in the universe. Makes this race rather viable and I admit to being tempted to try it (never played PP before)


So whilst IS should be a powerful race and a strong contender it isn't as powerful as it would normally be, as we're going straight into the building of warships at 2520 and that's what will cost IS more than anyone else.

Hey I'm not saying it will be a hopeless race or anything, but it's certainly lower on the scale of PRT's that I'd choose. I might be tempted, but probably not. In fact if IS was banned I'd be somewhat inclined to choose SS.

Finally I think it counts as to the amount of effort you must put in to create a successful IS race for this universe. Excellent results can be obtained with most other races with a lot less input, so perhaps it's not worthwhile

[Updated on: Mon, 28 March 2005 01:15]

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Steve1 wrote on Sun, 27 March 2005 10:35

I think you guys have overated IS for this universe. I still maintain that 25% higher cost for Weap is a serious impediment.

Some thoughts about that. Since all races will have plenty of minerals there will be probably more missileboats build. The usual main line design philosophy here is as much missiles as possible enhanced by as less comps as possible. IOW more weap than elec/mech/shield stuff, that hurts IS. Though you still need beamers. And this is where IS is hurt a lot less since in beamer nubs you'll find a lot less weap, 3 slots and even only 2 slots of AMPs is viable. You'll find more other stuff on beamer nubs, possibly 3 slots of eny caps, and the rest all defensive items, defs, jammers, shields (and a slot for jets).
IS is one of the races that actually can build better beamer nubs than others because of the high tech jammer ... You either safe a slot because you only use one jammer, and if you planned on only using one afteral than you're better off than with the elec16 jammer. WM and HE also make better beamers because they can safe a slot, WM has it's movement bonus, HE can use less caps thanks to their flux cap (as you already pointed out).

So the IS gives most of his iron to his teammates and those build the missile ships, especially if one of them happens to be a WM.
Think: *team*.

mch

[Updated on: Sun, 27 March 2005 07:26]

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Quote:

You can't trade ships with somebody who has you set to enemy or who you have set to enemy

Erps trading ships with the enemy, what was I thinking

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Quote:

So the IS gives most of his iron to his teammates and those build the missile ships, especially if one of them happens to be a WM. Think: *team*.

Good point Micha. As long as teams are set near each other, this would work quite well. Would still be preferable for everyone to have the ability to build cheaper missile boats, but the IS jammers are pretty good. Of course building the one laser design for bigger stacks isn't as viable, but could be done if the other two races build only missile boats and the IS builds all the laser nubs. In that instance, I admit that does make the IS race more worthwhile
I'm still steering away from it however, due to all the work required and then to only obtain a similar end result.

[Updated on: Sun, 27 March 2005 11:51]

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[Updated on: Sun, 27 March 2005 13:06]

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Steve1 wrote on Sun, 27 March 2005 02:35

So whilst IS should be a powerful race and a strong contender it isn't as powerful as it would normally be, as we're going straight into the building of warships at 2520 and that's what will cost IS more than anyone else.

You may want to actually research this some more. You are sort of correct...weapons are more expensive...but it doesn't really matter in a game like this one. I'll let you figure out why.

-Matt

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Quote:

After some testbeds I found out this game wouldn't be such a MM nightmare. I'm considering joining. How many "would-be" players do you have ATM? BR. Iztok

It would be just plain bad luck if you ended up next to a PP race

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mlaub wrote on Sun, 27 March 2005 23:02

You may want to actually research this some more. You are sort of correct...weapons are more expensive...but it doesn't really matter in a game like this one. I'll let you figure out why. -Matt

Unless you're talking about what Micha already mentioned, ie.

Quote:

So the IS gives most of his iron to his teammates and those build the missile ships, especially if one of them happens to be a WM. Think: *team*.

then I'm not sure what you mean.


I looked at things from a miniturisation aspect and even cherries would cost an IS 16 Bor compared to a WM's 10 Bor. Resources are closer for that item (5 compared to 7), but for the most part you'd be using high end Weapons like Armeg's, Omega's, BMC's and AMP's, so miniturisation would hardly help at all.
Chaff is a different story though. Costs are the same for red lasers and Yakimora's for either IS or WM. Furthermore IS can choose the rather useful mini-gun, so it is good in that regard.


Another possibility is the abundance of minerals that everyone would start with.
However, just watch how quickly they become depleted when you're doing massive builds at every planet. The winner of this game will most certainly have to capture lots of extra minerals from their opponents. (or lose no battles ) and if you're depleting them faster than anyone else you could be in trouble.


Certainly the floating orgy would help in a big way to max out (and over-max) all your planet's populations, but by that stage surface minerals on every world will be seriously depleted and extra mines (due to the extra pop) won't really help with the mineral situation. There's no Genesis device in this game either, so the IS race will have to be very aggressive in aquiring as many opponent worlds as possible or else have selected the LRT MAT (not a bad LRT for this universe if you can afford it - particularly for IS).


Admittedly your allies could hand over some extra worlds to help utilise your excess pop and their pop could be distributed over the rest of the empire to max out worlds. If the IS and allies used that in combination with the building of ships in the most beneficial way (IS builds the laser nubs and the others build missile boats) then that could certainly provide some benefit.


The last guess is the IS advantage with the Jammers.


If it's none of those things that you're talking about, well you've got me stumped.


However the more I've thought about IS in this universe, the more attractive it seems. Still don't think I'd want to go with that race, but it is looking better.

[Updated on: Mon, 28 March 2005 01:28]

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Kotk wrote on Sat, 26 March 2005 05:54

Steve1, you expect full foolproof recipe, step by step, with full profitability calculations how to win announced game under hand with a simple trick i suggested? SERIOUSLY? No one will join it on such case. Matt actually explained it too well already.

Something else I'd like to add:
You'll note that I'm giving lots of opinions and advice on this game. I intend to join it, so why give away so much information?

The answer is simple. I don't want to join a game where newer players have little idea of how to create a powerful race. The last thing we want is drop-outs and this is exactly the sort of game that might get quite a few of those if they don't feel able to at least mount a reasonable defense against their neighbour.
I want my opponents to have a fighting chance and if Iztok does join this game (as he suggested he might) then they will certainly need to. He's a skilled player and has had a great deal of experience. Have you heard how extensively he likes to run his testbeds?

So far he's the player to beat and I'd like everyone else to at least be able to put in a valiant effort

[Updated on: Mon, 28 March 2005 01:44]

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Since freely giving advice has been mentioned, I'd like to provide a few tips to the newer players:

1) Select beginner max minerals for your initial testbeds.
In comparing different races you might do better with one or the other purely because it had more Germ or Iron. Max minerals will give you a better initial idea of what works and what doesn't (as a comparitive analysis). Once you have a better idea of what PRT, LRT's and settings you will choose, then you can try some testbeds without that setting.

Try to keep the Germ surface mineral "somewhat" constant throughout your following testbeds as it could make a very big difference to the result! If it means going back to the race wizard numerous times and re-entering your race details, then it's still better than putting all the effort into a biased testbed.


2) You will need to do numerous testbeds otherwise your race could be quickly wiped out. It's unlikely your first couple of tests will yield the optimal result, so keep doing them until you're satisfied that you will have a fighting chance.


3) You MUST get max tech or close to it. That means at the very least Weap26, Cons26, En22, Elec19 and Prop23. Otherwise your opponents will have too much of an advantage over you.


4) Now that you've achieved max tech, do you have sufficient minerals? When designing your race focus more on the number of mines rather than mining efficiency. In most cases you will achieve a better result in this type of game.


5) If you select TT, ensure that Bio is your main focus. Kind of obvious I know, but it would be horrible to reach 2520 and find that you accidentally left research on the default "Energy" setting


6) If you didn't select TT then it might be a good idea to choose the LRT GR. That way you get to research early Bio, Prop, Weap and Energy. Will make a big difference to your final result.


7) Remember to modify your "default" planetary settings by 2420 if necessary. 1020 facs and mines is a good idea and you must include terraforming (except CA or tri-immune).


8 ) Ensure that none of your planets are contributing to research until they max out their build queue. That includes checking your default settings. This is important and could make the difference between becoming a powerful race or not. There would be a few exceptions to this rule, but I won't go into them.


9) Select a PRT, LRT's and hab settings that is likely to work well with other races. You have two allies and no idea of what configuration they chose. I know it's harder on that basis, but be a little inventive. There's no doubt that a CA TT could be very helpful to its allies, but it would be a shame if both your partners also selected the same PRT


10) Remember to have some leeway between the result you achieved in your testbed compared to the lesser result you will obtain in a real game. If you only just manage to max your tech in a testbed by 2520, then you probably won't get there against other players. You can ignore other players results of 300k and 370k to some degree, cause they will not get that in a real game unless they improve their race. It so happens I've achieved better results (not saying how much better ) than those in my testbeds with various races, but I know those results aren't realistic.


11) Don't select the LRT UR. All your team builds should be final designs, so unless you made a serious error in judgement or your opponents counter designs are too much better, then it's a whole heap of points wasted. You need those points to max your tech and generate sufficient minerals.

Btw, WM with pen-scanners could come in very handy for building counter designs. In your first year just build chaff and whatever other designs you need and then start on the warships. It's a risky strategy as it puts you behind on the numbers of warships for your team, but could be very effective long term
Might also be safe to build missile boats in the first year, as the design of those is often less critical than the laser nubs.

Anyhow, it's just a suggestion and I'm not necessarily recommending WM as the best PRT. It's certainly a viable race for this universe however.


12) Wow, so many other things I could add. That will do for the moment, but if anyone else would like to provide advice (particularly to newer players) then please do so.

[Updated on: Mon, 28 March 2005 03:33]

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Hi!

Steve1 wrote on Mon, 28 March 2005 09:30

Since freely giving advice has been mentioned, I'd like to provide a few tips to the newer players: ...

You've provided quite some usefull advices. I'll add few more:
- do the testbed with the expected number of planets. 300k+ res shows they've taken twice the planets they could get in the real game ;
- there will be 100+ turns of time to develop a planet, so think about capacity , not speed. The only goal is to be ready for AMP and Armag Nub carnage soon after turn 120;
- there will not be much time to develop an empty green/yellow planet when fighting starts. Count only on what you'll get at turn 120;
- there will be allies close to you, so think team (as Micha said). You could not get all tech maxxed, but if you'd get above average minerals, that'd help your team lots. Tech can be traded , minerals can't be made... BUT... you don't know what other members of the team will have!
- if you're not ready to be a devoted member of the team, then don't apply. The "team" that will not perform a carefull coordination and cooperation will be at significant disatvantage to a team that will do. Communication will IMO be the main MM burden in this game .

Well, my .
BR, Iztok

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Steve1 wrote on Mon, 28 March 2005 00:43

I'm giving lots of opinions and advice on this game. I intend to join it, so why give away so much information?

I certainly won't.

Quote:

The answer is simple. I don't want to join a game where newer players have little idea of how to create a powerful race. The last thing we want is drop-outs and this is exactly the sort of game that might get quite a few of those if they don't feel able to at least mount a reasonable defense against their neighbour.

Exactly why I wouldn't join this type of game. I may be wrong, but IMO it will attract people who never get to the end game. If the rules were modified were you could pick your teammates, then it would be more attractive. My most memorable games were team games, with people I know.

Quote:

So far he's the player to beat and I'd like everyone else to at least be able to put in a valiant effort

Maybe, but if he gets saddled with 2 noobs, then either they lose or he ends up hating the game cause he is essentially running 3 races, 2 via email. Been there, done that. It's rewarding if that is what you are prepared to do, but if you aren't planning on it...

-Matt

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[Updated on: Mon, 28 March 2005 10:54]

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Steve1 wrote on Mon, 28 March 2005 09:54

I was rather hoping the host find someone to gen the game until we get a universe with decent Germ. It will make a huge difference as to how well everyone does. With a 100 year gen I think you need some stability or it will make testbedding that much more difficult.

It was an unstated hope then (until now )

There are two races of nature HP and HG...
now, it may be that HP is the rule here I don't know that for sure...
In which case a restriction on germ concs on generation will be effective.
But, ... one might also have to allow for HG...
Which requires a higher iron conc...

So a dual restriction may be more effective...

however, 30% is the floor... is that not not enough to gen full facts in 100 years?

regards,
donjon

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