Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Game idea: Diaspora.
| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Sun, 30 November 2008 05:35   |
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| magic9mushroom wrote on Sat, 29 November 2008 12:26 |
Problem: Player 2 doesn't know which races Player 1 is, and vice versa. How would a victory announcement work then?
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Player 1's races are the ones with the same habs that have been exchanging tech using wolf/lamb sites. The exchange of various toys may also be indicative! It would be surprising, if by the time it is time to declare a victory, folks didn't have an idea of who was who.
I presume also, that you will be preventing folks from giving their races the same name or even using a recognisable naming convention.
Sulpholobus.
P.S. Interest expressed.
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Sun, 30 November 2008 05:52 |
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| magic9mushroom wrote on Thu, 27 November 2008 22:55 |
The other 5 players each control 3 of the remaining 15 races. The races have to have the same hab (after all, they are biologically the same), but can be otherwise different (after all, they're fringe sects with different values). None of the races can be AR or CA, and they all must have different PRTs.
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Since the habs have to the same for each PRT and they must be different you are effectively banning 3i-HE.
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Because the ships carrying the sects were well-supplied and huge, each race starts with a full 1M pop planet, as well as large mineral stockpiles (100000kT of each mineral).
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Will a HE get 500 000 pop in orbit so it doesn't die off? Obviously, it can't have the LF's that it was transported in unless it chooses con11 for it's starting tech.
Sulpholobus.
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Mon, 01 December 2008 09:07 |
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| Micha | 
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| magic9mushroom wrote on Fri, 28 November 2008 05:26 |
How big was Schizophrenia?
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The game in which each player had 2 races? Large Dense, 640 planets, 40 per player.
Some numbers that might help you towards victory conditions: in 2490 when the game ended, our HP JoaT had 155 planets and 184k resources, the HG WM had 142 planets and 148k resources. That makes a total of 297 planets and 332k resources.
We had a +700ly active front with an SD/JoaT team, and were finishing off the remainders of 4 other teams inside our space (one of them inactive). Though we didn't own the planets yet, at least 50% of the universe was under our control.
Turns for EACH race took +5hrs ... (as early as 2450-2460 when I had around 100 planets)
I did not play 2 races, from the start I played with Gianluca as teammate, else the game would have cost me 10hrs per turn ... communications did not take as long as those extra 5hrs, Gianluca and me played several games together and we know what the other is capable of.
Playing two races in such a large game I did not consider "Schizophrenia" but *Insanity*, playing THREE races in an even larger universe I'd call Sado Machosisme ... FUN is spelled differently ...
Sure, you can slow down gens (we got down to 2/week, and sometimes that was still too much), but imagine 1/week, that's 4-5 per month, going from 2450 to 2500 would take a year! And if you get somewhat balanced teams a huge will not be over till 2550 ... who is up for a 1.5-2 year game? Been there, done that. Medium (or smaller) gives more fun and less *work*. IMHO.
mch
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Mon, 01 December 2008 19:57 |
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Wouldn't it work better to have one player per race and have them design their races together? It'd be much easier to play that way.
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Mon, 01 December 2008 21:58 |
|
 Effluviant Walrus |
 | Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US | |
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| Micha wrote on Mon, 01 December 2008 18:34 |
-since you're actually taking the *time* to play three games and the sects might not even 'reunite', make it three *separate* games!  Heh, find a willing host that transfers ships between the universes. Time might even take part in this, if one universe is 10 years ahead of the others you can send arma BBs "back in time" to the other universe to face the enemies lower tech ships ... Shall I shut up now?
mch
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I actually like your idea to split it into many games (as long as there's no time travel  ). You could expand the scenario to encompass more of the "history". The 5*3 races start out and develop as normal. The Blight then appears, starting with pretty overwhelming force (a ton of pop, ships, etc.) and each sect has X amount of turns to gather as much of their pop, mins, ships, etc. into a giant fleet to flee and colonize a new "sector". The game then splits into three games, each "sector" having the fleet from one of the sects of each race + a force sent out by the Blight. You could have 1 player per sect at this point. The winner would be whoever's sum of their ranks in all the sectors is the "lowest", as in if someone came in 2nd, 4th, and 1st, their score would be 7.
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Tue, 02 December 2008 05:27 |
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| magic9mushroom |
| Commander |
Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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The game in which each player had 2 races? Large Dense, 640 planets, 40 per player.
Some numbers that might help you towards victory conditions: in 2490 when the game ended, our HP JoaT had 155 planets and 184k resources, the HG WM had 142 planets and 148k resources. That makes a total of 297 planets and 332k resources.
We had a +700ly active front with an SD/JoaT team, and were finishing off the remainders of 4 other teams inside our space (one of them inactive). Though we didn't own the planets yet, at least 50% of the universe was under our control.
Turns for EACH race took +5hrs ... (as early as 2450-2460 when I had around 100 planets)
I did not play 2 races, from the start I played with Gianluca as teammate, else the game would have cost me 10hrs per turn ... communications did not take as long as those extra 5hrs, Gianluca and me played several games together and we know what the other is capable of.
Playing two races in such a large game I did not consider "Schizophrenia" but *Insanity*, playing THREE races in an even larger universe I'd call Sado Machosisme ... FUN is spelled differently ...
Sure, you can slow down gens (we got down to 2/week, and sometimes that was still too much), but imagine 1/week, that's 4-5 per month, going from 2450 to 2500 would take a year! And if you get somewhat balanced teams a huge will not be over till 2550 ... who is up for a 1.5-2 year game? Been there, done that. Medium (or smaller) gives more fun and less *work*. IMHO.
mch
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16 races in Medium is too much IMHO. As I said earlier in the thread, large is an option.
There is something I deliberately added to jumpstart, starting at high level in 1 tech, and with 1M pop. That'll drop playing time quite a bit.
I'd be thinking 3/week gens, otherwise, as you say, it'd get too slow.
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Something I wanted to mention about Schizophrenia as well but my ranting about huge universes kinda carried me away: "random" shouldn't be an option, there should always be control. For fairness and balance there are two possibilities: one is *all* teams grouped together, second is *all* teams *equally* spread out.
I have been in a random team game before, 4 teams started widely spread out with enemies between them, one team started all three nice together in a corner ... guess who ran away with the game ...
That said I most of the time played "grouped" team games, but after Schizo that had all 8 teams reasonably fair spread out I must say it spiced things up and was more interesting.
mch
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Realised that myself. All spaced out was my decision.
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And I agree with that. Just there needs to be something that reduces the (often repetitive) work, or another view on the game to get it down to a smaller scale to attract players and keep them interested during the course of the game ...
Trying to be constructive:
-if you want the size because of the distance it puts between the sects you could go with a smaller universe with less stars but stretch it to something bigger
-make the races closer to OWWs so you simply won't have that much planets (not looking at other effects right now)
-since you're actually taking the *time* to play three games and the sects might not even 'reunite', make it three *separate* games! Heh, find a willing host that transfers ships between the universes. Time might even take part in this, if one universe is 10 years ahead of the others you can send arma BBs "back in time" to the other universe to face the enemies lower tech ships ... Shall I shut up now?
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Maybe large packed would be better, you think?
I wanted free race design options, especially given the victory condition of resources.
On splitting, how would you go about transferring ships? And I can't say I like the idea anyway.
...
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Tue, 02 December 2008 13:35 |
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| Micha |
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 02 December 2008 11:27 |
16 races in Medium is too much IMHO. As I said earlier in the thread, large is an option.
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16 races in a medium too much? No! THAT is fun.
Teams in schizo were 800-1000ly apart, HWs were +/-300ly apart. Perfect.
I once threw 12 players in a small (4 teams of 3, positions were grouped), that was years ago but IIRC HWs were +/-200ly apart.
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There is something I deliberately added to jumpstart, starting at high level in 1 tech, and with 1M pop. That'll drop playing time quite a bit.
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Nothing against jumpstarts (or AFON starts), they are 'different' than normal starts, not 'better' or 'worse', just different. But with a jumpstart you're cutting off the early years, the ones that you can play 5/week anyway.
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And I agree with that. Just there needs to be something that reduces the (often repetitive) work, or another view on the game to get it down to a smaller scale to attract players and keep them interested during the course of the game ...
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Trying to be constructive:
-if you want the size because of the distance it puts between the sects you could go with a smaller universe with less stars but stretch it to something bigger
-make the races closer to OWWs so you simply won't have that much planets (not looking at other effects right now)
-since you're actually taking the *time* to play three games and the sects might not even 'reunite', make it three *separate* games! Heh, find a willing host that transfers ships between the universes. Time might even take part in this, if one universe is 10 years ahead of the others you can send arma BBs "back in time" to the other universe to face the enemies lower tech ships ... Shall I shut up now?
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Maybe large packed would be better, you think?
I wanted free race design options, especially given the victory condition of resources.
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'Better' in regards of less work ...
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On splitting, how would you go about transferring ships? And I can't say I like the idea anyway.
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Heh, don't take me too serious on that idea, that is just where my track of thoughts ended at 1 AM.: )
Anyway that's a work for the host. You'll need a few dummy races in all universes that can build the ships and transfer them to the receiving race. In the universe that gives the ships away they are transferred to those dummy races. Pretty sure this kind of idea has come up before ...
mch
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Wed, 03 December 2008 03:55 |
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| magic9mushroom |
| Commander |
Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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| m.a@stars wrote on Wed, 03 December 2008 06:01 |
| Micha wrote on Tue, 02 December 2008 19:35 |
16 races in a medium too much? No! THAT is fun.
Teams in schizo were 800-1000ly apart, HWs were +/-300ly apart. Perfect.
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Perfect for a fast scuffle and a "war" that's more like 100% skirmishing. Granted it's less work, but...
Unfortunately, unless you have a proper-sized playground, you cannot have proper strategy. Or at least not grand strategy.
Sadly, that means more work, and not everybody can afford that. 
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Agreed. I think large packed is a decent concession, but any smaller negates the point of the game.
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Wed, 03 December 2008 05:38 |
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If this goes ahead and I'm in, I've already got my three races fleshed out based on current specified criteria.
A few questions.
Do races keep their starting vessels?
Habs. They have to be the same or only slightly different. Is that in width as well as the central marker?
The large packed universe, will it be stretched too?
Sulpholobus.
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Wed, 03 December 2008 20:17 |
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out of curiosity(I avoid big games like the plague so haven't really been paying attention)...
Is it universe size(in ly) or number of planets that's important...coz if its size you can always just stretch it.
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| Re: Game idea: Diaspora. |
Thu, 04 December 2008 17:44 |
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| Micha |
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| m.a@stars wrote on Tue, 02 December 2008 20:01 |
| Micha wrote on Tue, 02 December 2008 19:35 |
16 races in a medium too much? No! THAT is fun.
Teams in schizo were 800-1000ly apart, HWs were +/-300ly apart. Perfect.
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Perfect for a fast scuffle and a "war" that's more like 100% skirmishing. Granted it's less work, but...
Unfortunately, unless you have a proper-sized playground, you cannot have proper strategy. Or at least not grand strategy.
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You mean there is no grand strategy until there are 1000s of nubs in the air? By the end of shizo we controlled 50% of the universe, without a good overall strategy (fighting on 5+ fronts, some 1000ly apart, with the same fleet of BBs?) and only "skirmishing" we wouldn't have gotten that far ...
mch
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