Re: Does ancient race take a little fun out of the game?
 

Maybe a pluasible explanation is that they are a race descended from a slave settlement of an ancient race. An ancient war/plague or whatever knocked out their master race. They have retained the knowledge of their old masters but not the same level of drive to explore and/or conquer.

Re: Does ancient race take a little fun out of the game?
 

It just seems odd to give this to a neatral. It doesn't benefit the neutral at all and it allows you to force a treaty on them and get the benefit of it.

Re: Does ancient race take a little fun out of the game?
 

This gives me a cool idea, but it would have to be hardcoded, and likely a pain to implement.

You meet this ancient race. They explored the galaxy and retired to their homeworld millenia ago. They are happy to share the information they found.

But their map is also millenia out of date. Warplines have closed, stars have gone nova, other races have stripped worlds and destroyed systems in genocidal wars before going extinct.

You don't get the "true" map info until you actually go there to verify it. For a really ambitious implementation, add a switch in game set-up for how much of the ancient map is wrong. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Another possibility would be finding an old map in ruins somewhere.

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Cap'n Q

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 28 April 2001).]

Re: Does ancient race take a little fun out of the game?
 

I think that would be a hard feature to implement. It means that two maps would have to made - the real map and then the ancient map with some systems randomally moved or deleted etc. I don't think it's really worth it...

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Re: Does ancient race take a little fun out of the game?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> I think that would be a hard feature to implement. It means that two maps would have to made - the real map and then the ancient map with some systems randomally moved or deleted etc.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The program already has to maintain multiple maps somehow, the real one plus a partial for what each race in the game has explored. In a sense, this would just be adding another player. None of the systems would move; the only changes on the galaxy map would be warp connections, and the program can already deal with warp manipulation. I agree that changing the details of the system maps could be a serious headache, though.

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Cap'n Q