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icon5.gif  New Game Idea? Thu, 24 July 2003 22:51 Go to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.

Universe Conditions[ 11 votes ]
1. Medium/Normal 4 / 36%
2. Medium/Dense 4 / 36%
3. Large/Normal 2 / 18%
4. Large/Sparse 1 / 9%

I was just wondering if anyone is interested in the following game concept:

About 7 players design two races: a patron and a client race.
Now the game starts with client races building fac, mines, def and the rest goes to alchemy. And they also scrap their starbase.
The Patron races start off as normal and develop their economy, interact with other races etc... Then there comes an event that drives the Patron Races almost extinct by destroying most of their pop say in 2500-2520ish (I am not going to reveal what event to keep the suspence in case someone wants to try this out). And so the client races begin to be controlled by human players and have an opportunity to start expanding into space amongst ruins of the past civilization. A Patron-Client team wins by majority vote.

Partron races do not interfere with client races until the EVENT. But I am open to suggestion.

Comments, Suggestion?



In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 25 July 2003 09:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.

Name of the Game[ 6 votes ]
1. Punctured Evolution 2 / 33%
2. Species 0 / 0%
3. Scavenger Playgrounds 4 / 67%
4. Other... (please specify) 0 / 0%

In case someone is wondering, I AM going to try to host this game if the interest is good. I need 7 players and both Patron and Client race designs from each player.

If you are interested, send your race files to alexdstewart@hotmail.com
and I'll try to get the game started.
Which brings me to the point how should the game be named?



In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 25 July 2003 11:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mazda is currently offline mazda

 
Lieutenant

Messages: 655
Registered: April 2003
Location: Reading, UK
I think there is a lot that needs to be defined.

For starters, what would the definition of "not interfere with client races" mean :-
Nobody can have ships/mines within a certain distance of any client ?
Can the client's Patron go closer than this ?
Can the Patron give ships to the client before the "Event" ?
Can the Patron and Client exchange tech from year 1 ?
Will the event destroy more than just population ?
i.e. if Patrons build up large fleets of ships then the most powerful patron will still be able to go round beating up other clients. Getting rid of even all their planets won't alter this.

Yours inquisitively,
M

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 25 July 2003 18:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.
These are good points.

Since the client races won't have any ships or starbase the mines could be laid and ships can pass through the clients system freely as long as they don't kill any colonists. This is done so to simulate Patrons' indiferrence to client races before the event. The Patrons are way too powerfull to bother about some backward pre-warp civilization.

The patrons cannot give ships to clients before the event. Since the observers will be essentially controlling the client races before the event this is easy to enforce.

As for event's destructive power: It will reduce the pop on all worlds to below 1000, 500-900 say so the patron can still recover but VERY slowly. Second, it destroys all the freighters carrying pop. And does huge damage to bomber fleets. All other fleets sustain some random destruction damage.

The idea of the game is to have these powerfull patron races building Huge fleets only to be reduced to a fraction of their strength and former glory and finding these new young races outgrowing them. Players can always transfer their fleets to clients after the event but there are sometimes disadvantages to this. The client race might not have the ability to take full advantage of all of the ships transferred. Only Joat races can have penetrating scanners on their light vessels etc...



In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 25 July 2003 18:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.
The patron race can try to scrap some ships over clients HW to gain some early tech advantage, but there are other Patrons to stop them. Plus the observers are going to be rather agressive in this game and have armed fleets orbiting Clients' HW's to stop such a trade. And killing observers has some backlashes Surprised

The idea of the game to have the patrons trying to dominate the area around most clients' HW to have an early advantage.

As soon as the client people start to take casualties the the EVENT happens and so you have potential to start the extinctions before the year 2500. Observers will have interceptors to take out any bombers. Very Happy



In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 25 July 2003 18:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.

Who should control the Client race?[ 5 votes ]
1. The same person that controls the Patron race? 4 / 80%
2. A different player entierly? 1 / 20%

No Message Body


In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 25 July 2003 20:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
LEit is currently offline LEit

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT
alexdstewart wrote on Fri, 25 July 2003 18:19

The patron race can try to scrap some ships over clients HW to gain some early tech advantage.


If there is no base, you cannot gain tech by scrapping.



- LEit

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Re: New Game Idea? Sat, 26 July 2003 02:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.
Even Better! Twisted Evil


In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Sun, 27 July 2003 05:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Captain Maim is currently offline Captain Maim

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 492
Registered: March 2003
Location: USA, Mesa, Arizona

I'm curious.. Just HOW do you plan to inflict this "Event" upon the patrons? Sounds almost like you can just edit the HST file to do so.. Or is it a volentary ordeal? And if so.. How can you ensure it's enforcment? I'm interested in the mechanics of this idea your proposing... Also I'm going to guess that the "observers" are one of or both of the 2 remaining races because you've counted for 14 players.. Is this correct? Or am I wrong...


Rule 1: "Pillage, THEN burn!"

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Re: New Game Idea? Thu, 31 July 2003 19:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.
Okay.
Here are the game mechanics:

Scavenger playgrounds
Medium/Normal
Distant Player positions
no option boxes checked
I need 7 players for now. They design a patron and a client race. Hopefully I would be able to recruit the other 7 players before the plague. 7 Patron races expand until 2480-2500 (randomly determined) and then the plague happens with the chaos period before patron and client races regain control again.
The plague inflicts following on the Patron races:
Pop on all worlds reduces to below 1000
Bomber fleets suffer 90% casualties
Transport fleets suffer hariable damage depending on circumstances.
War fleets suffer light 10% damage.
Mine-Layers do not suffer any losses.
The Patron-Client Race team wins by unanimous vote.
If either Patron race is eliminated its client must align itself with another Patron to win. If a client race is eliminated, its Patron must eliminate another Patron and make it's client race its own (diplomaticly)
Observers must be notified of any alignment change through the common channel. Client races can change their alignment at will after the plague.

Mechanics:
I would be playing the observer race and would have log on password for every race in the game. I would set the build que that the Patron race orders from through the chat mesanger.
I'd be using my calculator's random number generator to calculate the damage done to fleets and the year of the event.

Once the plague year is in. I will do the following:
Set some of the ships from different fleets to scrap themselves.
I will futher use all the transports available to load up pop and recycle them or drop them off in deep space. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that I could drive a race almost extinct in very short time. If I do not have enough transports to kill pop quickly, I'll build some more.
Once I've finished the carnage, the players regain control of their races.

This way I hope to create a unique situation where high tech races interact with low tech races in conditions of extreme scarity. Once again all interested people should send their race files with password to alexdstewart@hotmail.com

Any more questions?



In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Thu, 31 July 2003 20:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sotek is currently offline Sotek

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 167
Registered: November 2002
I'll be in.

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Re: New Game Idea? Thu, 31 July 2003 20:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sotek is currently offline Sotek

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 167
Registered: November 2002
Also, what about an AR client?

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 01 August 2003 09:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
wjneethling is currently offline wjneethling

 
Crewman 2nd Class

Messages: 12
Registered: August 2003
Location: South Africa
Some questions:

1) If a patron race gets eliminated (or effectively eliminated Twisted Evil ) before the plague event, the client will probably have no chance of survival. What incentive does another patron have to ally with a "patron-less" client rather than stomp on it?

2) When designing and submitting the two races (patron and client) I would have a particular style of play and skill level in mind. If I cannot control both the patron and client races, I would prefer choosing the client player myself, rather than having someone recruited who doesn't really know what he is getting himself into. (If Jason Cawley had to play a race I designed, he would probably have reason to feel disadvantaged Embarassed )

3) Client races can change their alignment at will after the plague!!!??? Shocked So a patron could end up with no client while another patron has two?

A very interesting game idea though. Cool

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icon14.gif  Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 01 August 2003 18:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.
Awh! Me Head Hurts! Confused

Getting People not to blow an AR client race out of the sky is going to be hard. Rolling Eyes So I would not disallow an AR client but I would strongly discourage it. If someone blows them poor AR's out of the sky I will start the plague immidiately to punish people for such a xenocide. Mad They would be allowed to keep their starbase though.

A 1) The win is by vote and patron has one vote, client voting for its original patron has two and client voting for another patron has one. A client aligned to a patron votes for that patron automatically. So if a patron manages to align two clients, their team would have 4 votes instead of 3.

A 2) To prevent Patron races from transferring too many fleets to clients a different person will be playing the client race.
To start the game I only need the Patron race players. We'll recruit the client players later on. If you have a nomination of who should have control over your client race, I will give them priority. If you just have skill or other preference, I will search for players of the skill indicated. If there are two condenters for control of your client race, you will be given the final choice.

A 3) Sure can. Very Happy
It is up to you to design a patron and a client race that fit like a lock and key, so that client races have no reason to change their alignment. Patron races would have large and powerful high tech fleets cruising the after the plague. Minefield everywhere, orbitals over most planets and extreme scarity of minerals... You get the picture...
The client races would need patrons' help to expand in such a hostile enviroment. And while Patrons have superior strength their economy is in ruins- they need client's help to rebuild. Because Patrons do not have bomber fleets, they cannot eliminate the threat of emerging client races- the simple solution to exterminate clients until the pop regenerates does not work and so the Patron races reluctantly help client races to grow their economy in hope that clients stay loyal long enough to replace the mounting casualties among their warfleets and starbases until such time when their economy is rebuild.

I hope this explains things a little bit better.



In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Fri, 01 August 2003 18:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alexdstewart is currently offline alexdstewart

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.
The SS client races would get a lot of tech jump start advantage because of the spy bonus. This is not disallowed, but If was a Patron race I'd have serious doubts about the loyalty of an SS race. After all, if the client race doesn't really need a Patron, they would have less motivation of not backstabbing. This is the case of a client race being too powerful.

I should add another rule:
A client race has the option to go rogue and declare independce.
A rogue race doesn't have to align itself with a Patron race but it could win the game only if everyone concedes to it(unanimous vote)

I think this rule will make it a bit more challenging to balance between useless client and a disloyal one.



In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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Re: New Game Idea? Tue, 12 August 2003 08:01 Go to previous message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Thread moved to The Bar since it is not a new game announcement, but instead a discussion of game rules/set-up. Refer to the sticky at the top of the "New Game" forum for the clarification on where to post these threads.

<wearing Moderator hat>

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