Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Stone Age Slaughter Tournament?
| Stone Age Slaughter Tournament? |
Thu, 16 April 2009 14:38  |
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 johng316 |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 177
Registered: November 2002
Location: Indiana, USA | |
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Hi all,
I'm currently hosting a game, Stone Age Slaughter (and playing in it also). The game settings are quite fun, and I am wondering if there would be enough interest in doing a tournament (8 games with 8 players each). The single winners of the 8 games would play in a final game to slug it out for the championship and big kahuna bragging rights.
I will need sufficient players and a few reliable hosts to pull it off. If you're interested in playing or hosting, post here. If enough folks respond, and once I get the hosts together, we will announce the games in the New Game Announcement area along with confirmed players for each.
SPECIAL RULES and SPECS for STONE AGE SLAUGHTER GAMES:
Universe size: Small
Density: Normal
SLOW TECH ADVANCES
Clumping: No
Acc BBS: Yes
Starting Positions: Distant
Public Scores: No
Victory Conditions: Last man standing or unanimous vote of all players (alliances allowed, but no alliance victory).
Number of players: 8 per game
Skill level: Intermediate or higher recommended. Reliable players who will continue to the bitter end required (or find your own replacement).
RACE DESIGN and SPECIAL RULES:
ALL tech trading forbidden! You can gain tech only from legitimate battle with enemies, your own research, or the MT. No wolf/lamb, no scrapping to gain tech, no pop dropping allies, and no scrapping MT ships to get items. Ships with superior tech may be traded but never scrapped. Deleting design is OK. Observing battles allowed as long as battle is between enemies. Tech gain from battle with enemies and invasion of enemies is allowed and encouraged.
* No limit on PRT. Anything goes. No PRT handicaps.
* All races MUST select Bleeding Edge Tech LRT (verified by host)
* All races MUST select Weapons tech expensive (verified by host)
* All other race, factory, mine, and tech settings are at the discretion of the designer.
Sticks and stones can break your bones!
Interest, feedback, and clarifying questions are welcome!
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| Re: Stone Age Slaughter Tournament? |
Thu, 16 April 2009 15:18  |
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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'd be interested in playing, I'd also be willing to host one but I can't imagine any possibility of 64 players participating. There hasn't been a game announced for intermediate and above players in 2009 yet although there have been quite a few beginner games, I've been waiting for one to start up, if there were 64 players waiting to start a game then a lot more games would already have been announced.
I'd expect about a maximum of 16 experienced players would be interested which would mean they'd be in 4 games each which would probably put quite a few of those off, I doubt most people would want to play 2 at the same time or even less than 3 months apart so it would take at least a year to work out the finalists and then you could have the problem of the same people winning each heat.
A 4x4 or possibly 5x5 tournament might be viable, as might a 3x6 with the top 2 going through but that would pretty much turn it into a typicl alliance game but without the tech trading.
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| Re: Stone Age Slaughter Tournament? |
Thu, 16 April 2009 15:47 |
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| johng316 |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 177
Registered: November 2002
Location: Indiana, USA | |
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Thanks, Paul. Yeah, I figured it would be tough to find enough players, but I might as well try! Maybe it would be good to open it up to beginners also, but folks who will promise to stay in and not leave a vacuum. Do you think that there would be enough players if we opened it up?
Well, maybe not enough for a tournament, but if not at least we can get a few games going.
I want to keep the empires relatively small so resource bases are not huge and thus tech has to stay reasonably primitive. So maybe if we went with fewer players per game, we could use Tiny universe or maybe Sparse settings. What do you think?
Thanks for the feedback,
John
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| Re: Stone Age Slaughter Tournament? |
Thu, 16 April 2009 16:53 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
|
Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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Adding beginners would probably result in less experienced players taking part since they'd find it pretty easy to tackle the beginners, lower intermediate with a few games under there belt is probably the better option if you want to increase numbers but even then I think you'd be lucky to get 24.
If you want a tournament rather than just a couple of independent games then 4 games of 4 players might be a better option. That would probably lead to -f races dominating so you might want to put a restriction on the growth rate, Glacier 2 which I've taken over a race in has a restriction of 8% and that probably had by far the biggest effect on slowing down the game. It's now 120 years in and W16 BBs are only now beginning to appear and the MTs probably had the biggest effect on them doing so. That game had average number of planets per player at the start of 15 although with half now dead it's upto 30.
It also had a few other restrictions and those and the 8% max growth is probably too slow for what you want though so if you were to consider a growth cap then 12% might be better with a restriction on HE races.
For a standard game I think the existing settings are fine, for a tournament that's slower than normal I'd suggest trying 4 games of 4 players along the lline of the following
Small Sparse(96 planets)
Slow Tech
Acc BBS
PPS, NRE & Clumping could be either option
12% max growth, BET, no HE, Weapons Expensive
no agreements between players
You may want to make Construction expensive as well otherwise you're probably quite likely to get W10 BBs appearing very early with few FF and CCs being built since most races would probably take Construction cheap a BB is way stronger than a CC in cost per firepower terms.
Those settings are based on my gut feeling from playing normal games and the 2 glacier games, I've not tried the settings yet but I suspect the game would probably end around the 80 year mark with W16 BBs being at the top of the tech tree.
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| Re: Stone Age Slaughter Tournament? |
Fri, 17 April 2009 09:16 |
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| johng316 |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 177
Registered: November 2002
Location: Indiana, USA | |
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Thanks, Paul and VonKreedon. Great suggestions all.
I'm playing and hosting one of these games now, and the settings are very fun, so I am not likely to mess around much wiht the settings. I do like the idea of having experienced players (a few games) but not requiring any wins. But players should think a little before designing their races.
In the current game, 3 of the 8 races were -f. One was the first to die, one has been under constant attack since the beginning of the game (poor chap started in the middle and could not drive to an edge), and the third is doing pretty well but not in a leading position.
Because it is small and 8 players, sparse or normal, it tends to make economies overall smaller than normal, and weapons expensive really slows things down. Armor and shields become more important. If you get behind in tech, it is harder to catch up.
VonKredon, I like the idea of playing 3 games and having the top 3 players compete in the final game of 9 players. We might have a chance to get 24 players that way. But my concern is that an alliance of 3 might form early for the sole purpose of locking shields to jointly make the finals. And then, old alliances from the previous game may re-emerge. But then again, I suppose the finals could be a 3vs3vs3 team game. Haha.
But I am starting to think the simplest and most fun would be just to host another SAS game, and if more than 8 players are interested, I would open a second game. No finals match.
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| Re: Stone Age Slaughter Tournament? |
Fri, 17 April 2009 18:12 |
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| johng316 |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 177
Registered: November 2002
Location: Indiana, USA | |
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Hi Iztok,
You make some good points, but with everyone taking BET, you need EN15 and CON17 to get what you suggest to build on a large scale. And if you take cheap techs, you are sacrificing econ. So in a small universe with 8 hungry players, the econs will not be as large as you suspect. Remember, no tech trading allowed, so tech advances are slower.
The purpose of requiring weapons expensive is to give other balancing defensive techs a chance to compete for research investment. Do I go for 2-3 levels of construction, or one level of weapons? It has been a fascinating tradeoff.
These settings are interesting for SD, as there are two currently playing in our game. It can be hard to deal with them since good minesweeping weapons don't come quickly with these settings.
Starting tech will have more than typical influence over PRT selection.  WM at Weapons 6 becomes suddenly interesting.
Some were worried the last time that all players would take the same PRT, but my advice remains the same to prospective players: Take the PRT that you think causes problems with the PRT you think everyone will take. In the end, we had a very interesting mix and a good game.
The lone CA in our game (a surprise there was only one) died early.
But if you'd like to play and think you have the magic forumla, bring it on! 
[Updated on: Fri, 17 April 2009 18:14]
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| Re: Stone Age Slaughter Tournament? |
Sun, 19 April 2009 12:04 |
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| iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| johng316 wrote on Sat, 18 April 2009 00:12 |
And if you take cheap techs, you are sacrificing econ.
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When I've been "rushing" for a particular tech, I felt the difference between cheap and normal tech very hard. The cheap tech works like I'd have my econ twice as big.
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So in a small universe with 8 hungry players, the econs will not be as large as you suspect.
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I've just checked the amount of available planets. 16 planets per player makes 1WW viable, and 2WW even more. A 2WW PP with cheap en...  Way too crowded for my taste though.
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Remember, no tech trading allowed, so tech advances are slower.
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Only in weapons tech. Other 2-3 techs cheap will be pushed quite high quite fast with the QS econ, and some luck with planet draw. With so small amount of planets it will be needed.
BR, Iztok
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