Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif A mere 3 turns into our game, Parabolize and I have met! My home system is right next to his home system. So far (turn 5 or so) and I've glassed one planet of his, and he's taken out one colony ship of mine. Looks like this will be an interesting game!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Yeah well. Remember when you played me Renegade. You beat me on turn 11, back when you were at the middle of the hill fighting the mighty Duros? :-p

Brian

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Well its 2401.3 and he is mined into his home system. He may still win but I don't think the chances are good.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Don't worry, I won't be stuck there for long http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Also, I'm not totally mined in....

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I know and have seen pair-of-bowl-eyes and play games with him and his Dad on a face to face basis. It was 5 min. befor I picked myself up off the floor. thanks for the visual
Goz

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

See there is no reason to fear me. I am weak and helpless. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

OK, OK, where's the emoticon for "bustin' a gut laughing"? Almost gave my monitor a beer bath, Slick!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Koth: Parabolize vs Renegade 13

Turn 27, I surrender to Parabolize. This was a very odd game...we started out in systems right next to each other! I made an early attack at one of his homeworlds with some missile frigates, but was defeated. I also didn't colonize very fast, hoping I could beat him fast with frigates with missiles. Unfortunately, that didn't work. Soon after that he mined me mostly into my homeworld (I only had one colony outside my home system). Once he mined me in, that was basically it. I held out hope for the next 15 turns or so, and made some minesweepers and took a warp point. However, he struck back, captured some of my minesweepers, and destroyed all my warships. Next turn he glass 2 of my 7 worlds, and after that I surrendered to him. There was no way I could overcome his massive advantage, both in time to colonize, and ship numbers.

It was a good (if weird) game Parabolize, and I only wish I could have offered a bit more of a challenge to you. Good luck at the top!

Alneyan, please move me to the bottom of the hill....and damn, its a loooooooong way down from here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

No more random placement for me. If Rex or Asmala would have been in that spot I don't think they could have got more than 3 systems to play with. But it was fun none the less.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I once started in a desolate system surrounded by black holes. I lost.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

KOTH has been updated.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

KOTH will be updated momentarily.

Renegade, I didn't hear from Warlord Ragnarok; did you? If not, I think you will play with Alex, and I will keep Ragnarok out of new games. (He hasn't posted on the Boards since Dec 20 or so) If you want to wait for him, please tell me so as well.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I will be sending you game settings shortly.

I don't post much here anymore due to work and RL responsibilities but I still play my games every day. I have been uber busy the past couple weeks with out of town trips the past two weekends. My apologies.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

No worries, I was just checking if you were still here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I will be creating the game.

KOTH has been updated.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Gandalph surrenders to Joachim at 2409.3. Him opening warp points throughout my side of the galaxy and obliterating my well trained fleet on his side of the galaxy was really the Last straw. Could have drawn it out another 20 turns or so but saw no reason to. Thanks for yet another lesson Joachim. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Please take me off the hill for awhile. I can never seem to get more than 2 wins in a row and think I am going to take some time off to reflect. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

THanks for the good game Gandalph, I though I had no chance for the first 30 turns, and it was only in the Last 10 that I started to think I had it.

I had an horrendous map start, my home system had two exits, to the south there was then five out of six wasted systems! To the North I ran into you after four warps - so I basically thought I was trapped and stuffed early on. I think that stealing your breathers and madly researching the other colony types was the only thing that kept me in the game during the middle phase.

I was surprised that you had not colonised every planet in your space? You also had me very worried when your first PPB ships hit my normal shield ships - if you had pushed really hard at that point I may have been in serious trouble.
Thanks again for the game!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

You will be delighted to know KOTH has been updated. Well, perhaps it won't matter a lot for you, but I have to bypass that "post already exists" thing.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Alneyan, dude, could you please give us a restart? Seems our request for the Balance Mod and manual placement didn't work out too well.

(1) There are only 2 systems between our homeworlds and
(2) For some strange reason, the Balance Mod didn't give me a breathable in my home system (but it DID give Joachim one).

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

There were at least five/six systems in the map I made, and both starting points were not set on any planet, so you should have had both a breathable planets in your systems.

I have nothing against restarting the game of course, but I would rather wait for someone to explain what went wrong. Either I made the mistake of not actually loading the map when I created the game (apologises in this case), or there was another glitch somewhere.

The former seems the more likely of course. I could give it another try (taking extra care with that kind of matter), or you could ask someone else to make the map; either way is fine with me.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

*Slaps self repeatedly* The mistake was fully mine. Instead of setting one starting point for player 1, and another for player 2, I made two starting points for one of you (Joachim), and none for you Slynky. The correct map was used, but the problem was in the map itself.

Full apologises are in order then. Feel free to let me know if you want a restart with myself as host, and I will set it up as soon as I get your word. Otherwise, please let me known once the new game has started so that I can update KOTH.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

No problem - at least we now know why Slynky only had the one breathable.
Please restart us with all the same settings (standard Koth, geo balance map, manual place)
Cheers.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

BTW, when I set up a manual start map, I never specify a particular player to a particular system. I just make 2 systems specified as "any".

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I didn't know about that feature Slynky (the "common starting point" made me think of something else altogether). That is good to know, and I will now use "Any" systems instead of specific systems, if only to avoid that kind of mistake on my part.

The new turn has been uploaded to the game.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Thanks! My home system looks MUCH better now.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

KOTH: Warlord Ragnarok vs. Renegade 13:

2400.9: We meet. He's beating me in stats, but I think we're pretty close. My starting position sucks (it seems), but maybe his does too. About 1/3 of the systems I've explored have been useless to me (a couple asteroid only systems, a couple nebulae systems, and a black hole). All in all, it's not looking too good for the Tyrellian Imperium. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif But there's still time.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

KOTH - King of the Hill Game Asmala vs RexTorres

2406.2: I have surrendered to RexTorres. To put it bluntly he was much better in all areas. Especially the early boarding of my colony ship was a nice move, but I think he would have won even without that. Rex really deserves the Crown.

Alneyan, please remove me from the Hill. (Well, I suppose you would have done that automatically http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)

I'm not sure if I've said this but thanks Alneyan for taking the administration of the Koth league.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

All hail KING Rex! What will the new kingdom look like now? Can't wait to read the new chapter from Geo.


Congrats to the RexMeister! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Concerning the 2nd restart of the game between Joachim and myself...well, looks like the game map got created with ruins on planets. Joachim just settled one and informed me he got one that is too good for a KOTH game. I didn't even know there WERE ruins till he told me this morning.

So, that leaves us with the following choices (my preference obviously a big effect):

(1) Start a 3rd game with the same settings. I don't know about Joachim, but playing the first 10-15 turns of a single medium-homeworld KOTH game isn't much more exciting than sticking my head in our icebox and watching my breath condense. So, since I've already done 2 games of that, I'd rather not do it again.

(2) Start another game with new settings (and empire files). Something more exciting than waiting 12 turns to get mines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif.

(3) Or, assuming I know the KOTH rules well enough, I'll sit off the Hill a bit till I feel like trudging through 10-15 turns of another standard KOTH start game. This, of course, assumes I will re-enter the Hill where I left off.

So, this message is mostly to Joachim, I guess.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Slynky, you just can't win with premade maps here lately. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Could it be the same problem I was having with not selecting 'no ruins' on both map and game creation?

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

One must skip down to the page and turn "Ruins" off before generating any map if you don't want ruins on it. The ruins, I gather, are generated (or not generated) depending on that setting WHEN you click "Generate Map". Finding a map you like and THEN turning ruins off and saving the map does no good. And, of course, NEVER turning off ruins will result in the same thing...ruins http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

Yes, Nodachi, having my problems lately http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Heh ya, I did not even realise there were ruins unitl I got the tech report - of Min II, armour and med bays. Agreed on the tired drudgery that is standard Koth.
I am pretty game on strange settings - anyone like to suggest something wierd for the KOTH Slynky V Joachim - now would be the time!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

IIRC, Slynky doesn't care for mods in KOTH games so we can eliminate those options. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Hmmm... how about a balanced map, high tech, and ten planet start? That'd be sure to eliminate the drudgery! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Sounds interesting. Do they make that same flavor in 5 planets? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif And ZERO racial points?

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

LOL Sure! They also come in economic two system varieties! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Balanced map, 5 planets, 0 racial points... OK http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

By high tech do we mean high tech cost (Haha my DUC II, DDs beat yours!) or full tech?

What about adding no mines (waste of time)and no talisman and manual placement? And if full tech than no stellar?

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

"Balanced map, 5 planets, 0 racial points... OK

By high tech do we mean high tech cost (Haha my DUC II, DDs beat yours!) or full tech?

What about adding no mines (waste of time)and no talisman and manual placement? And if full tech than no stellar?"

OK:

Balance Mod;
5 good homeworlds;
Full Tech;
No mines;
No Talisman;
No Opener/Closer
No intel;
0 Racial points;
Manual placement on a "big" small spiral.

Sound good?

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Sold! This will be different at least!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

A bit late now, but... You have a curse or something Slynky, I can find no other explanation. Well, I know I turned the ruins off once, but I think I only did so before generating the map. As I see no ruins on my map, I guess it is needed when starting the game. I exited the game creation window after finishing the map, so I may have forgotten to switch the ruins off in the second run. Or perhaps it was something else altogether. Apologises are in order at any rate.

I will not even try the manual placement a third time, since that was the problem the two first times around. Unless you really want me to give it yet another go? On a side note, I am thinking of making a special mod (only on the creating side) removing ruins from the game files. That would probably be much better.

Apologises once again.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

KOTH has been updated. The King is dead, long live the King!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I can remove all the ruins if I remove both the ruins abilities (I set them to 0% chance of appearing, giving 0 technology if they do appear) and the four unique technologies. Unfortunately, it means a mod will have to be used for the game, but it modifies nothing beyond removing the ruins. It can be set up very quickly as well.

I will be doing a bit more testing of the mod now, to make sure ruins have been hexed out of existence for the millenia to come (of course, I will still check the No Ruins box, just to teach them a lesson). Would this sort of mod interest anyone, either for hosting or for play?

No ruin appeared in several games (5,000 planets in total had no ruins, even though ruins were enabled), so I gather the safety measure is doing its job. But I have just been reminded of something annoying: the mod would have to be set up on PBW, as it would be needed during play. That, or trust the players not to use the special ruin technologies, and only use the mod at game start (which would remove the standard technologies from planets, leaving Massive thingies and the Neural Net).

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I don't think you need a mod really. I'm fairly certain you just made a mistake and didn't turn them off when you generated the map. It happens, it's no big deal. And you should only have to turn off ruins at the point when you actually generate the map. Once you modify the map with common starting points and go back and start the game up it shuldn't matter wheter you have them turned off or not. The game shouldn't add them in at that point if they weren't in there at map generation.

If you did want to make a mod to turn off ruins, you wouldn't need to set the mod up on PBW. You use the mod to generate map files and then use them in the stock game. The only time ruins are assigned to a map is when it's created. Even if you did want to be doubly sure and start the first turn using the mod, I don't think the players would need the mod. The balance mod that I made modifies the system type files which are used at map generating time and the players don't need the mod to play their first turn.

In fact if you only change the files that control the chance for ruins to appear, the players may not need the mod at all. The balance mod I mad tweaks those system type files that are used for map generation and the players don't need to use it for their first turns, even when it's used to actually create the first turn. Hmmm, maybe I should just tweak out the ruins in the balance mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You don't need to turn off the unique techs. That would change the components file and make a mod that the players and PBW would have to have, but it's unneccesary. Without ruins there is no way to get those techs anyway.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Making a mod to insure there will be no ruins seems like overkill (but if, like the Balance Mod, the mod is not needed by the players, what the heck, right?).

But, all one need do is follow the same steps I do when creating a game:

(1) Start SE4
(2) Turn ruins off
(3) Generate whatever type of map you want over and over till one looks interesting
(4) Save the map file
(5) Exit the game
(6) Load map into Map Editor and set starting points
(7) Save and exit
(8) Start SE4
(9) Load the saved map
(10)Load an empire with Ancient abilities and start a dummy game (and look under Special).

Steps 8-10 take less than 2 minutes to do. And once the map has no ruins on it, I don't think generating a game with the loaded map will cause ruins to suddenly appear even if the game has ruins turned on. But, I turn it off anyway (as added insurance) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I have a hunch ruins are added when creating the game, and not before. I will launch a test game to check that though. Well, the hunch was quite wrong, so I guess I forgot to turn off the ruins when creating the map (I do both just to make sure, when I don't forget...).

Geo, the ruin thingies appear even when normal ruins are removed from the files. I think it is because of the techareas files, and the flag "Can only be found" (or some such name). On the other hand, both players can agree not to use these things if they do appear by mistake, and/or they could be modded out of the game by common agreement. I think I will be using my no ruins safety measure from now on, which will not be needed by the players. That way, even if I do forget once more to turn the ruins off at one stage or another, it won't be half as bad for the players themselves.

So Slynky, do you want me to give it yet another try, with another foolproof measure to make sure those ruins are out of the game? Your idea about loading an Ancient Empire and checking makes sense too; don't ask me why I didn't think of it before.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

We have a saying that goes something like this, "Third time's the charm." So, I don't see why not let you have at it again (as punishment for the other 2 games if nothing else http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif).

I will have to work up an empire file tonight when I get home, though, so the game will probably be started tomorrow sometime. Tonight I have to take my daughter to Girl Scouts so I will be starting later than normal on the PC.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

I will take care of it then, with the foolproof "anti standard ruins thing", combined with Geo's Balanced systems.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Come on Kwok, lets keep partying. Don't tell me you aren't ready for my crystal ships yet =D.

Brian

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Thanks, Alneyan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Sorry for the delay!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Np. Just so you know there's a lot of crystal ships coming. A lot. Around 50 or so. If 4 crystal ships can hold off 40 of your ships... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif.

Brian

Re: Are you tough enough to be the \"King of the Hi
 

Well, you might have realized those are outdated destroyers without mounts or any other high damage weapons... of which many were support type ships as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif