Re: Rules Question - contest
 

You mean I would have to start over for the 4th time? Heh I love playing the game but the way you have this set up its too boring at least give the AI a bonus and make a larger galaxy so we can at least have something to do besides sit back and build bases for the Last 50 turns. Or shorten the game to 100 turns.

Long before I knew of this latest exploit about maintaince I set my race to 110 in Maintaince so my latest game is history if you change the rules again. I have 5.5 M points at turn 77 in the latest game so under the current rules I will have plenty of points to gain the lead.

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

Let's look at this another way. To get the free maintance you have to expend 2500 points AND take the merchant trait. This makes this trait more than any of the other advanced traits excpet emotionless (which is worthless in the contest).
I agree that the culture traits are not balanced. Scientists get 5% extra on research. Workers get 5% extra on each of the three minerals. You can't look at just the raw percentages put look at the number of racial points that each area gives you.

I don't want to restart again either. I found the merchant trait beneficail after anaylsis this and put my maintaince at 110% (the point where the additional racial point cost kicked in) so my +5% was worth more racial points then before the break point. This gives me 10% maintainence fee which has been rather sucessful.

This may be an undesired affect by MM but I believe all of us had the availablity to look at the empire set up screens and decide. If we want to take the randomness and skill of creating a race out of it and make it equivalent to a video game then probably need for Twin Galaxies to provide a save game at turn 0. This way we all have the same settings and throw out the factors of setting up the game. I beleive Nyx has mentioned before, they have strict rules on video games in that the players always use the same specs to play on.

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

For the proposed new rules do we turn off allow gifts, tributes and also turn off Allow Technology Gifts, tributes, trades? And is Surrender not allowed? I just started a game like that. It looks like a very slow starting game expecially if you don't have a good coloniziable planet nearby. It takes a while just to research troops and probably will take many to take over an intact homeworld. It may even favor peaceful treaties with the AI but unfortunately my Empire will not allow me that option http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif.

On another note I speed finished my old game and submitted the score. If you change the rules don't worry about it being so high just make it an unoffical score. But why did you limit the high score so low. It won't accept any scores over 6M I got that much in 80 turns or so. I just did high level strategy in the Last 50 or 60 turns and just kept the building queue's full and some technology being researched. I wanted to turn all the asteroids into planets and make 15 or 16 Sphereworlds but I will do that next time.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 26 January 2001).]

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hydraa:
Let's look at this another way. To get the free maintance you have to expend 2500 points AND take the merchant trait. This makes this trait more than any of the other advanced traits excpet emotionless (which is worthless in the contest).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm starting to be less concerned about maintenance after all. I have a feeling all the winners are going to have 2000 bases anyway, and if you have to take 0% maintenance to get there, you'll probably have less points in resource production, and so will lose on the resource difference.

-Drake

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

Nyx:

I posted a mod that changes the default races diplomacy techniques to better fit their race description. And so far with testing I haven't run into problems. It is now much more realistic in regards to surrendering, some warmonger races don't surrender period, and peaceful races stay peaceful, hence you can now have allies with the default ai races. I didn't touch the whole MEE section, but my mod definitely makes diplomacy a lot more realistic. Good luck with your contest.

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

Yes 2000 bases are not hard to get to I had 2000 bases on turn 107 so I could have had far more than that by the end. If it is ruled that you can have 2000 ships and 2000 bases the final score can be a lot more than what I got. Since the game limits of 2000 really don't kick in at least for bases some interpretation will need to be done.

A low maintainence helps but your right its not the only thing. A lot of micromanagement in moving population around helps a lot also. Also the order and speed that things are researched make a great deal of difference and how resources are handled. Those thing have a far greater impact on the final score.

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

Oh, you don't need that many, just around 200 meduim troopers. That's after you decimate the planet to less than 1500 M...

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

Yes but how many to capture an intact planet most of them have 2000 colonists so it can't be a lot more than that. I would rather just come in and capture it whole http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif. Too bad that you can't get tech advances from capturing planets if we are limiting all the diplomatic ways to capture tech. Well I guess there is always Intell to get tech and capturing the colonizer ships for the colonization techs.

Hmm the racial traits picks are a lot harder choices if you have to use intell and maybe even have a few fights with the AI. Although without a bonus its research is real slow so it will take a while before it actually has any real weapons.

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

Even without the surrender tactic, if you just research organic weapons to level 3, it should Last you until you take all the AI out with troops. That'll also give you cheap effective troops if you use the small org. weapons.

I hope we hear some decisive news on the diplomacy issue soon.

-Drake

Re: Rules Question - contest
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I hope we hear some decisive news on the diplomacy issue soon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the AI surrender to you even if you don't demand it? It looks like the overwhelming majority are for forbidding surrender, but if the AI will just do it anyway, then that doesn't really change much. You leave your ships blockading their worlds for three or four turns and it's just as if you sent the demand isn't it?

BTW, on the grond conquest issue, I've taken full-strength homeworlds, guarded by WPs and defending troops with only a single partly-loaded small transport carrying only small troops. It doesn't take anywhere near 200 medium troops.

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