Re: Space Empires IV Risk!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">For super-quick games, maybe just use single-system maps, or two adjacent systems. Then give each player one homeworld per "fleet" they sent in.

Would require making a bunch of custom maps, but would likely save you time in the long run.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, that may be a little TOO cutthroat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Besides, the number of fleets is already accounted for in the racial points. I think number of planets would be too much of an advantage. I can see a 1K empire beating a 5k empire. But 1 HW beating 5? No way.

Geoschmo

Re: Space Empires IV Risk!
 

My first reaction was, "Won't this take like ten million years?" But if you make the combats tiny-galaxy games, like a handful of stars, then perhaps it will be possible. I think it can be decided by a single battle: give people the same starting conditions suitable for a very short game (plus modifiers for fleets used,) and have them use the first 20 turns to build up, and on turn 21, duke it out with whatever fleets they've amassed by then in a predesignated system. This slightly favors one style of play (for example, nobody is likely to invest race points in trade or maintenance) but should hopefully still allow some diversity in tactics.

Ties in well with the custom maps that are required to simulate "terrain." I can see it working with as few as 3 planet-rich systems: one for each player, and one for the battlefield.
You can maybe make an event which will open a warp point between the systems?

Still, I think if many combats happen each turn, it may take several hundred thousand years to get through a game like this.