Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Game Idea: Parallel Worlds
| Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Wed, 18 March 2009 17:36  |
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| PaulCr |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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There hasn't been an intermediate game starting for ages and I'm beginning to get bored of waiting for one to do so and I've been reading through some of the old threads and came across the New Game: Diaspora thread and I kind of liked Michas idea of having 3 separate games with ships being able to be transferred between them so I've been thinking of starting a game based on that concept.
I could actually write something to do ship transfers automatically, simply rename to fleet to say 'Universe 1' and when the turn generates it disappears from the existing universe and reappears in the 1st universe at the same spot as long as there are design slots available or the design already exists.
It would make the game interesting even if you started losing badly in one of them since you could bring in support from another and you wouldn't want to give up completely since then you lose the PRT & LRTs from that race.
Autohost obviously wouldn't be able to run it but I did write something similar when Fledgling Admirals 2 had problems on Autohost that I could dig out.
Basically I envisage 3 games, identical universes with all races starting at the same spot in each, turn gens would be strict to keep them all generating at the same time. After the turn generates my app gets called to transfer any ships between universes, modifies the .hst and m files and then the m files get sent out.
Exact details on the setup would need to be discussed first and I'd need to see if there is any interest which is why I've posted the idea in the bar first, things that would need deciding beside the obvious game parameters are things such as should transferring minerals and pop be allowed, should transfers take a turn rather than being instantaneous, ie they get removed from universe one before the turn generates and gets placed in universe 2 after the turn generates, should they only occur in open space, since allowing them at planets could lead to the ultimate surprise attack, restrictions on race designs etc. I'm sure there are quite a few more issues people could come up with.
I'd be intending the game to run with about 5 or 6 intermediate or above players in a medium universe and I would probably be playing so I would need someone to do the initial setup to make sure all races are valid and that they start at the same place although it should be fairly easy to do by using the same seed to generate the universe so the initial setup should be easy to do.
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Thu, 19 March 2009 01:03  |
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1) why identical universes? - keeping the planets in the same place(and importantly the HWs) makes sense, but the hab/mins?
2) can you arrange it so that the resources spent on research is shared in the other two universes?...hmm otoh could just tech trade with myself...
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Thu, 19 March 2009 03:55 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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| gible wrote on Thu, 19 March 2009 05:03 |
1) why identical universes? - keeping the planets in the same place(and importantly the HWs) makes sense, but the hab/mins?
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The main reason for keeping the universes identical is to keep all the planets in the same place, I'm less bothered about the hab/minerals than planet positions but I do think it makes sense that races would want to inhabit the same planets in the different universes for strategic reasons and that is made a lot easier by keeping the habs being identical on the same planet. It'll also be a lot easier to set up.
It is also in keeping with the concept of the name of the game where the actual planets are the same but human events have happened differently to cause a different outcome.
| gible wrote on Thu, 19 March 2009 05:03 |
2) can you arrange it so that the resources spent on research is shared in the other two universes?...hmm otoh could just tech trade with myself...
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It could be made possible to have research resources shared between the different universes, tech trading would be easier, you'd be getting you're research done at 3 times the rate so maybe slow tech advances would be an option
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Mon, 23 March 2009 04:36 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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I already know how to decode the design, that is why I said in the post that you would need the design to already exist or a free slot available for a new one to be created.
Everytime you wanted to do a transfer it would look up the design in the other universe and see if you had an existing design that was identical, if not it would create a new design which would be marked as having been given to you by another race to stop parts you can't build from being removed. Once it has a design id of an equivalent ship it would create a new fleet of ships at the same location as the originals with that design and remove the existing fleet in the original universe.
You would for example be able to transfer OAs from a CA or Tachyyon detectors from an IS in one universe to a different PRT in the other, it would also be possible to transfer minerals and population in the fleet although transferring pop may be too much of an exploit since you could design a 20% he in one to produce pop in one universe and 4% races in the other and I'd expect to ban pop transfer unless everybody wanted it.
Minerals transfers would probably increase the variability of races, an AR would probably be nice to have since you can bring in ships and minerals from an existing universe to help it survive until in can produce a mineral fountain which could then be shipped back to the other 2 universes to allow them to keep building.
The above is pretty much academic anyway given I'll only write the app to do the transfers if the game is going to start and it doesn't seem to have generated much interest.
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Mon, 23 March 2009 06:06 |
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| Micha | 
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| PaulCr wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 09:36 |
The above is pretty much academic anyway given I'll only write the app to do the transfers if the game is going to start and it doesn't seem to have generated much interest.
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Oh, I for one am intersted.  It's just that my feeble mind can't imagine all possible side effects ( =exploits <g>) yet ...
Some things have to be set first:
- identical universes yes/no; I would say yes, both choices are valid but being it parallel universes they at least should start the same
- identical races yes/no; following the above I would say yes but for diversity and fun PRTs can be different. Assuming races 'mutated' differently by 2400 is 'realistic'
- fleets transferred at the same coordinates yes/no; I'd say yes, KISS. This could make for some really nasty surprises, say in univ1 you take a players HW, next turn that (huge) fleet can appear at the same HW in univ2 where you might be in a much worse position.  ... which brings us to:
- fleets transferred with no time loss yes/no; this is a though one ... since there isn't Real World reference  this could be instant, or this could take any number of years ... Better to look at keeping the balance of game play here ...
- pop/mineral transfer yes/no; I would not transfer pop, there are some 'realistic' reasons I can make up for that, different PRT, different hab, ... Minerals would be ok for me, I'm now thinking about a great novel by Isaac Asimov: The Gods Themselves, a *must* read for every SF fan! (Well, about any book of Asimov is a must read.  )
| Plot Summary (copy from that wiki article): |
The main plotline is a project by aliens who inhabit a parallel universe with different physical laws from this one. By exchanging matter with Earth, they seek to exploit these differences in physical laws. However, this will have the ultimate result of turning the Earth's Sun into a supernova, but provide an alternative source of energy in their dying Universe.
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- keeping the universes 'in sync' yes/no; I wouldn't mind if they got out off sync, one game running faster than the other would bring in some nice twists and turns! Univ1 transferring 1000s of nubs to univ2 where everyone is still in the BB era.
Though for technical reasons, and again balanced game play it might be better to keep them generating at the same times and in the same years.
- 1 player for all 3 races yes/no; how about making it a team game? That drops the work load by 2/3! 5 or more teams of 3 players, each teammmember is in a parallel world. This is the only game where you can have more than 5 teams of 3!
...
mch
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Mon, 23 March 2009 07:03 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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| Micha wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 10:06 |
Oh, I for one am intersted. It's just that my feeble mind can't imagine all possible side effects ( =exploits <g>) yet ...
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| Micha wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 10:06 |
Some things have to be set first:
- identical universes yes/no; I would say yes, both choices are valid but being it parallel universes they at least should start the same
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I'm definitely in favour of keeping the universes identical, it's a lot simpler to set up and as mentioned to Gibles reply I think it is in keeping with the theme.
| Micha wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 10:06 |
- identical races yes/no; following the above I would say yes but for diversity and fun PRTs can be different. Assuming races 'mutated' differently by 2400 is 'realistic'
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I'm more in favour of allowing different races, strategically I think it makes sense for races to keep a fairly similar hab anyway so they can all occupy the same planets, making the race designs identical means the only reason to transfer ships is tech trading and a battle fleet, you probably wouldn't bother transferring minerals given you'd probably have similar amounts on all worlds. Different races allows for a lot more varibility then normal, personally I'd expect to play an AR or ARM race, probably a CA unless it's heavily penalised or banned completely and probably a WM for Dreadnaughts although all of the above are based on fairly normal game settings.
| Micha wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 10:06 |
- fleets transferred at the same coordinates yes/no; I'd say yes, KISS. This could make for some really nasty surprises, say in univ1 you take a players HW, next turn that (huge) fleet can appear at the same HW in univ2 where you might be in a much worse position. ... which brings us to:
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Fleets would definitely be transferred at the same location, what I think is up for discussion is whether transfers should only be allowed in open space, I think they should precisely to stop you taking one world and immediately going to the next.
| Micha wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 10:06 |
- fleets transferred with no time loss yes/no; this is a though one ... since there isn't Real World reference this could be instant, or this could take any number of years ... Better to look at keeping the balance of game play here ...
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The 2 options I see are having fleets transferred at the end of a turn and showing up immediatly in the new turn so they could for example take a world in 2450 and appear in the new universe at the start of 2451, or having them removed before the generation and added to the new universe after the turn has generated. I'm more in favour of the second option because I think it should take time for ships to transfer, a second, albeit relatively minor one is that it avoids you getting messages from a fleet that no longer exists although that does already happen in stars occasionally.
| Micha wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 10:06 |
- pop/mineral transfer yes/no;[/b] I would not transfer pop, there are some 'realistic' reasons I can make up for that, different PRT, different hab, ... Minerals would be ok for me, I'm now thinking about a great novel by Isaac Asimov: The Gods Themselves, a *must* read for every SF fan! (Well, about any book of Asimov is a must read. )
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My feeling is the same as yours that pop transfers shouldn't be allowed but minerals should be, I'm not keen on pop transfers as mentioned in an earlier message about using a 40% HE to generate pop, I'm in favour of mineral transfers since it opens up a lot more options in race design.
| Micha wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 10:06 |
- keeping the universes 'in sync' yes/no; I wouldn't mind if they got out off sync, one game running faster than the other would bring in some nice twists and turns! Univ1 transferring 1000s of nubs to univ2 where everyone is still in the BB era.
Though for technical reasons, and again balanced game play it might be better to keep them generating at the same times and in the same years.
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It'll be a lot simpler to keep them all generating at the same time, I'd certainly wa
...
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Mon, 23 March 2009 08:09 |
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| PaulCr wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 04:36 |
The above is pretty much academic anyway given I'll only write the app to do the transfers if the game is going to start and it doesn't seem to have generated much interest.
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I'm definately interested too but I don't have the time for at least 2 months.
Sounds fascinating.
3 races played by the same person sounds like a lot of time. You'd pretty much have to ban alliances (was that covered earlier?). A team game with one predetermined ally in each universe sounds like the way to go. In that case I'd say that different PRTs should be allowed.
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Mon, 23 March 2009 15:01 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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I think allowing 1,2 or 3 players to play to play each race should be allowed, so those that only want to play 1 race can do so and those that want to play all 3 can do likewise, I don't think there'e that much difference in either option. A team would share the workload but they'd still need to communicate with one another, if they played it as almost 3 seperate games then that might not be much but then they wouldn't have the full strategic overview that a single player has, if they play it as a single game then the time they need to spend on it probably won't be that much different from a single player doing all 3 anyway.
It would probably take a few months for the game to start up, I first have to get enough players interested, define the game parameters fully and then write the app to actually do the transfers although that could be done in a couple of days easily, I'd also make the app available and give time for people to use it so they can do some testing before deciding on what race designs to play, at the moment I'm expecting race designs to be more like a team game rather than what would be produced for a normal game but given it's never been done before I'd certainly want some time to try out various strategies before committing to my race designs. Its entirely possible it may work out completely differently from how I'm expecting it to and I can see people using completely different strategies which will probably change as the game progresses.
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Tue, 24 March 2009 05:04 |
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| Micha |
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| PaulCr wrote on Mon, 23 March 2009 12:03 |
I'm definitely in favour of keeping the universes identical, it's a lot simpler to set up and as mentioned to Gibles reply I think it is in keeping with the theme.
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So that is already set.
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I'm more in favour of allowing different races, ...
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In case it wasn't clear, I agree.
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Fleets would definitely be transferred at the same location, what I think is up for discussion is whether transfers should only be allowed in open space, I think they should precisely to stop you taking one world and immediately going to the next.
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Open space would be annyoing at some times ... maybe transfer only on a planet that you own in both universes? Only a planet with a SB?
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The 2 options I see are having fleets transferred at the end of a turn and showing up immediatly in the new turn so they could for example take a world in 2450 and appear in the new universe at the start of 2451, or having them removed before the generation and added to the new universe after the turn has generated. I'm more in favour of the second option because I think it should take time for ships to transfer, a second, albeit relatively minor one is that it avoids you getting messages from a fleet that no longer exists although that does already happen in stars occasionally.
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So in option 1 they can have a WP0 and WP1 order and carry that out, while in option 2 they would be not present ... IOW they won't lay mines, won't appear in any battles ...
Second option might be better indeed.
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It'll be a lot simpler to keep them all generating at the same time, I'd certainly want to know for sure which turn thy would appear in the new universe, technically it's definitely easier for the transfer since it avoids having to store ships somewhere temporarily and it can check that they can be transferred before removing them from the original whereas if they generated separately it would have to remove them first and wait for the receiving universe to generate to see if they can be added or not. It's for that reason that unless pretty much everyone taking part wanted them not to be synced then I would sync them, most other options I'm quite happy with a 50% majority decision, for that though I'd pretty much want everybody to want them to generate independenty before I'd agree to do it.
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Ok, so high chance that all universes will be synced (all in the same year and generating at the same time). (would be my preference)
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I'm not a big fan of team games, I'd actually go the opposite and say that rather than reducing the workload by 2/3 it actually doubles it, diplomacy takes longer than actual turns and running it has a team would require that, albeit it should be simpler than a normal 3 player alliance would be, I'd see this game as having no tech trading or alliances between the different races so in effect pretty much only NAPs would be negotiated and even allowing that would be up for discussion. I wouldn't have a problem with people who wanted to run all 3 races doing so and those that only wanted to run one running it as part of a team though, I'd certainly choose to run all 3 and not have to spend hours communicating with my allies.
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Well, I *am* a big fan of team games.
I thought it would be an all enemy game, so no diplo required. And when I play with my usual teammmates communication between us is rather minimal, we played many team games together and are quite attuned to eachother ... Did that in Schizophrenia, a game where a player had 2 races, I played with Gianluca, the later turns took 5-6 hours (some testbedding included) and same for him, that's 12 hours per game year (3/week) ... communication was just a little part of that ...
However not being in the same universe might indeed require more communication ...
mch
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Tue, 24 March 2009 12:36 |
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Heck! Multidimensional Stars!
You guys are really crazy!
This game will be hell and will give MM a completly new dimension (actually it will give it even 2 new dimensions *grin)
I'll certainly not play in this game, so you can just forget the following suggestion or take it up if interested:
* There should be a kind of penalty for switching dimensions.
* Perhaps don't allow switching dimensions while in orbit of a planet.
[Updated on: Tue, 24 March 2009 12:36] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Game Idea: Parallel Worlds |
Thu, 26 March 2009 18:11 |
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Note I won't be playing in this game either but...
In response to Altruist's idea about enforcing some kind of penalty:
Why not make shifting dimensions only possible with a Stargate? And give it the same mass limitations as it would have for a Stargate? It kind of fits the theme - your engineers have made certain "modifications" to the Stargate changing the dimensions on which they transport your vessels.
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