PBW : Paranoia2
 

PARANOIA 2

The first edition of this PBW was a bLast, with Flatline giving us a Master's lesson in how to Fight/Cheat/Lie your way to victory. Sometime the game was frustrating, sometime it had me going mad. But it had never been boring. All in all, it was the best game I ever played.
Kuddos to all Paranoia1 players, and kuddos to Flatline.
I feel it is now time to begin the second edition of this game, especially for those who missed the first game.

SETTINGS :
60h auto turns
Starting resources: 100000
Starting planets: 1
Home planet value: Good
Score display: Own
Technology level: Low
Racial points: 3000
Quadrant type: Mid-Life
Quadrant size: large
Event frequency: None
Technology cost: Medium
Victory conditions: See below
Maximum units: maximum allowed
Maximum ships: maximum allowed
Computer players: None
Neutral empires: No
Number of players : 14 (pair number only)
Standard 1.84 game with the following rules :
Tech trading DISABLED, Ancient race not allowed, surrender not allowed, INTEL allowed, RELIGIOUS TECH not allowed.

VICTORY RULES :
All players start with a secret target race. Your goal : be the first to kill your target

Now you get it : 1 empire dead, and game over for all players. If another player kills your target, you win. If you kill an empire while it is not your target, you lose and someone else win.

This is a highly political game. The killer is that even small empires are important. If one die, game over. In this game, the PBW's game forum will be especially important, as it will be in it players will send call for help, try to lie to each other.....etc...etc.....

PONTINE LEEPERS LAW
It is forbidden to give planets to a player. You can exchange ships if you want, but no player should be artificially keept alive by the mean of planetary gifts.

THANKS TO TESCO
As soone as we have ironed the Last victory rules details, and before the game begins, Tescosamoa will become game master. He will create the map, put in it starting positions and send all players the name of their target.

[ February 05, 2004, 14:03: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

GAME TIME !

JOIN NOW !

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

i will run the game if you want

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Plotting and other conspiracies are not only encouraged, but needed in this game? Hmm, count me in then. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

to Alneyan :
Vital.
Due to the settings, all alliances can only be temporary, to save someone, to get an empire back to "correct" size..etc...etc..


To Tesco
Thanks pal !
I will ask to an admin to give you ownership of the game, and I will give you the details to create the map and place the players. In short, a player should not be placed too near his target, and most important, if Player A is the target of Player B, Player B should NOT be the Target of A. That will add some spice.....

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Sounds awesome, but how long does a game like this typically take? And since I'm a total n00B at PBW, will I have all the bigger empires babysitting me so the game won't end before they find their targets? Hehehehe, that might be fun.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

sounds interesting...
60hr turns?
cool, im starting to think I may have to many games on my plate but with turns that long it shouldnet be a prob http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sigh.
I did quite a lot of "baby sitting" in the first Paranoia.

Then, I don't want to scare anybody, but the first game Lasted....around a full year !!!!

AND WE WERE HAPPY OF IT !

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Isn't this supposed to be true for all alliances? *Smirks* I know, I tend to be too much a plotter, and too suspicious as well. (Well, for the sake of completeness, I should mention I am more prone to grovel when my Empire is the weaker one, which is more often than not the case. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

yea but what is the avareage pbw game Last?
1 year cant be to long esp if you had that game on 60hrs as well!
howmany game turns did it Last? is probibly a better way of mesuring it.

ill upload my empire tonight.
any tips? anything you would do diferent for this type of game?

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hum, don't remember.
Some player, not the biggest achieved to build a ringworld.

Tips : do not neglect "Political Savy" in this game. Do not max it, but do not neglect it either.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Have you decided how to deal with the issues we had at the end of the Last one?

Specifically, there needs to be a definition of what's needed to score, that can't be trivially avoided by opponents using gifts. Such as, maintaining control of the homeworld.

I'd also suggest using, say, PvK Balance Mod.

PvK

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

I don't think so.
If we had specified rules about homeworld, even flatline would have lost the game (his homeworld was glassed).

No, I'd rather say :
An empire is destroyed when it has no remaining planet.

I had time to think about the Last game, and there was 1 lesson Flatline had to teach us all : ATTACK YOUR FOE ! DO IT ! STOP WAITING AND GO FOR HIM !

As for your balance mod, I would rather stay on known ground such as unmoded game.

What was in your mind ?

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

PvK Balance Mod is actually only altering the Empire cration by balancing the costs for raising each characeristic or for taking a given trait and by balancing the different cultures. Nothing else is changed by the mod. Your choice then. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Yes, I know, I had a look at it. But it alters the empire setup quite a bit. As you surely know, games are won or lost at setup....

So we will stay on normal SE4 for this game.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

The problem with "has a planet" is that any player can give any other player a planet (or colony ship) very easily. The only reason the Last game ended when it did was because people got so sick of the status quo that they stopped playing to achieve the stated goals. That is, the weakest player had been suicidal for a long long time, and finally, one of the other players decided to purposely end the game by attacking the remaining planet of that player, even though it wasn't his target.

If Flatline's target had simply accepted the gifts we were offering him more than once every 20 turns or so, he'd have had some very secure bases, etc.

So my point is that if the weakest player can be kept alive by a simple gift, then the game can Last until one player conquers practically everyone, or the other players get sick of it and stop playing towards the stated objective, which is essentially what happened Last time.

I suggest PvK Balance Mod because in the unmodded game, setup choices are very unbalanced, and players who don't know and exploit the imbalances tend to have a pretty unfair disadvantage. The unmodded game setup is unbalanced and very easy to pick a very disadvantaged empire if you don't know what's a bargain and what's way overpriced. The Balance mod makes many more choices competetive - there's much less danger of messing up your game during setup. If you don't want to use it, then I at least suggest that newer players read the description of the mod, so that they can make more informed choices about what is practical to get (or not) in an unmodded game.

PvK

[ November 24, 2003, 22:01: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

no gifts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

I would try to put it the other way around.
I you're a newbye, I mean first get around the normal game. Only after that start messing with mods.

As a whole, I would assume that players should have read the newbye FAQ. If not, other players around will have a hell of a time to keep newbye alive.

And that is part of the fun.

Then, the NO GIFTS is indeed a good solution.

[ November 24, 2003, 22:50: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

I would have assumed no gifts anyway! Think about it...

"I want to send a fleet to guard your border. *Evil cackling heard in background.*"
"Just gift them to me."
"My evil plans, foiled!"

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

PONTINE LEEPERS LAW
It is forbidden to give planets to a player. You can exchange ships if you want, but no player should be artificially keept alive by the mean of planetary gifts.


From Paranoia 1 and the infamous Pontine misconduct (may they be cursed for eons), we can say that if a small empire is sold a colony ship, it is at risk of loosing it very easily by the mean of intel attacks. Planets can be harder to destroy with intel, and I want to keep ship trade in the game.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

and I edited the game's settings as well.

[ November 25, 2003, 09:59: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

You really would need to ban the gifting of colony ships as well, otherwise the Law is too easy to circumvent, intel or no.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Actually, I guess the Law could be circumvented in a number of ways:
1) Gifting colony ships
2) Gifting a ship with troops
3) Gifting Construction ships/bases
4) Letting PPP intel attacks get through (though this one is slightly risky, since you'd have to drop all your CounterIntel)

Any others?

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

can we restrict partnership treatys to only 2 empires? (ie yourself and one other)
that way intell wont get totaly out of hand.

I wouldent mind using the pvk balance mod,
I like haveing strong troops...

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Gifting ships leaves many loopholes for perpetuating indefinitely any empire who isn't as lame as the Pontine Lepers were.

To add to the list:

5) Gifting a ship with boarding parties or allegiance converter, which happens to be stacked with a colony ship.

PvK

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Plus, inability to gift ships leaves so much room for subversive and sinister fleet movements like I just outlined.

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

I'm in. Prefer no gifing at all. If it is allowed, I suggest the condition for victory be when your target:

-has no planets
-has no SELF BUILT colony ships (i.e. those with a picture matching your races).

And no gifting of colony ships allowed. This allows better enforcement, though trading beforehand is still a possibility (which is why no gifting c ships- so there is -no- reason to have a colony ship with another race's image)

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

SUMMARY :
- Victory condition : you win when your target has no planets.
- Ship trading can only take place between similar class ships.
- Spirit of rules prevail on the letter of rules, differences of interpretations shall be handled by Tescosamosa

First,
Victory condition : you win when your target has no planets. Your foe can still have tens of ships, if it has no planets it is dead and you win.

Second,
We all agree that ship gifts is forbidden. But I would like to keep in ship trading as well as pop trading. It can spice the political game.
So what would you think of the following rule :
Ship trading can only take place between similar class ships. Which means a colony ship must be exchanged versus another colony ship, a light cruiser versus another light cruiser and so on.

All rules can be bypassed, and at the end of the game, we will have to stick to the spirit of the rule rather than the letter of it. That point will be enforced by Tescosamosa (who's gonna get lots of new "friends" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) as a non playing game master.

Third,
PvK, your points are valid, but we cannot enforce every rule in the game due to limitations of SE4. That is why I think it is better to have a "juge" as Tesco to handle the difficult end game. Indeed the end of Paranoia is difficult, you get all players suddenly loosing while just ONE is declared victorious.

Now to my dear friend Nocturnal :
If I have to send in my fleets to stop your enemy and save your ***, I am in NO WAY about to give you anything. I prefer to keep a powerless neighbour that way. And eventually if you are a small empire, you could not support the ships I am giving you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Remember : you will NEVER help someone because you like him, but just because you don't want to loose.

To se5a
remember that there is no allied victory in this game. And partnership can be a political tool. It was eficiently used in the Last game....

PS : Welcome to Phoenix-D, bla-bla-bla....kill him kick http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif .

[ November 26, 2003, 15:14: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Uh, no, I didn't. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

I was the one who took over a weak empire and spent the rest of the game trying to build a sphereworld so I could have SOME hope of living without trade.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm personally confused as to what the Spirit of the Rules is. And I don't understand what limiting trading to like class ships is supposed to accomplish. Gifting of warships seems like a great thing to allow. Providing other players with remote colonies seems like something that will painfully prolong the length of the game...

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Spirit of the Rules didn't hold up well in the Last game. Without a clear definition, people played to different victory conditions. Hopefully the spirit can be explained quite clearly beforehand, so players may most or all agree on what game they are playing, and not get surprised when the game ends in a way that seems to violate the spirit they had in mind.

E.g. Last time the weakest player made almost no effort to stay alive, and got practically all his neighbors to hate him by attacking them, ignoring their gifts, etc. Another player who was one of the strongest then decided to try to hold the weakest player hostage to convince his target to destroy his own system grav shields, because he didn't think he could beat his target, and when that didn't work, he just killed off the weakest player (who wasn't his target) to end the game. It seemed to me those were both pretty big violations of what I thought the spirit of the game was, since the main rules were:

1. Stay Alive
2. Kill your target.
3. Keep all other players alive.

PvK

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Wrong, it was the Drachir who decided to end the game, and did it.
Then, the politic that was used did not work, but nothing in the game can nor must prevent you from choosing who will NOT win.

It is part of paranoia.
So I would say that the rule to keep other empires alive is not mandatory. It is just an obligation as long as you think you can win.

You seem to be quite bitter about this game. I also notice you discuss much the details of the rules, but did not join.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

[ November 26, 2003, 22:23: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

I'm pointing out the weaknesses of the Last game, in case it saves some of the players of this game some grief later on. Seems like it'd be good to benefit from past experience. I'm not bitter about the Last game, though I did end up feeling like I wished I hadn't spent a lot of time playing the end game, because of the anticlimactic ending. The game was still interesting. I wouldn't've guessed that players would get so apathetic and suicidal and end the game for everyone else out of ennui or whatever it was. However I wouldn't be interested in playing a game with the same weaknesses. It seemed pretty clear to me that such a game should not have a way to easily perpetuate a target, meaning no clever but easy loopholes (such as trading an escort for a boarding ship stacked with a colony ship next to an empty planet). And, that the rules should be very clearly agreed on beforehand, especially as regards players who stop caring about trying to win, and just go and end the game. If it's a valid move to end the game by killing someone besides your target on purpose, shouldn't that be at least defined in the victory conditions? Does the player who ends the game in a loss on pupose lose worse for being responsible for it? Or do they get some sort of consolation prize, so killing anyone else can be seen as a secondary objective? Does the person whose target died really win, even if they weren't even nearby when it happened? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

PvK

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Of course previous edition had weakness. However, you can put it the way you want, but the player who most agressively pursued victory became the winner. So I disagree on the "anticlimactic ending". More, as soon as you agree to jump in paranoia, you join a game of "sudden death". You will almost surely end up as a looser in perfect health. And the winner may not deserve his victory.

And no, there is no second place. One win, all other lose.

But what you wrote should send a strong warning to all Paranoia2 players : if someone is in position to destroy another empire, then the end game does not lie anymore within your reach. You're not anymore controlling the situation.
Political implications may be..upsetting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

But before we start, and before I hand over control of the game to Tesco, I will write an email to all players to summ up the rules of this game. I'll try to be as crystal clear as possible. If someone find a loophole, once reported, Tesco will have to deal with it (lucky guy, he is !)


Oh, just a thought, but the fact that paranoia1 created such strong feelings is just a hint of what a great game it has been. If we are only half as successful, Paranoia2 will be a bLast.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Heh Unknown_Enemy,

I'm sure you have already noticed this but scout and freduk have indicated they are using the same ship set.... Obviuosly this will be a rather serious problem when the game gets a going.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Damn.

Thanks for the info. I'll ask the Last arrived player to fix that.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

goodie!
I got there first http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I already gave the tara set up on the adamant game.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

ok how about this for end game.

"No more origanal population"

and if pop traiding is allowed then state that traiding population BACK is not. (this will stop players from traiding some population to another empire, using that empire as a "piggy bank" to get the population back if needed.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What if they capture their own population back? That could still be done by agreement to keep a weak target player alive. It would be a chore for the admin to have to prove that population never passed through another empire by one means or another.

(just trying to be helpful (raises shields http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ))

PvK

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Sticking to "dead=no more planets".

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

filled.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

let the hunt begin and good luck to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
All others can go to hell and I'll help one of them to go there.

Tesco, you're now the master.

[ December 01, 2003, 13:51: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

i do not have any rights yet with this game.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Rule check: what about non-colony ships with colony components? A player
could trade a non-colony LC for a colony LC..

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Indeed, players could do that.
If the purpose of such a trade was to give some colony ships to a player, that would be bending the rules so much that it would become cheating.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

What if that weren't the purpose, and how would tesco know?

PvK

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

And how do you guess in other games when someone is cheating ?

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hard to tell, but if he's the game master he can check the status of any ship in the game at any time. No need for a player's password, you just change the password, run the turn offline and check using the new one. The checking turn doesn't get uploaded, so it has no effect on the actual game.

That's too cumbersome to do for every trade, but occasional spot checks should keep people honest.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

naa just give tesko all our passwords...
would make it easyer for him.

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Sorry guys, but most of the time, when someone is cheating, it is just other players who come up pointing to someone's weird behavior.

But you can also take another stance : somewhere, we have to trust the players, cheaters are an exception here. Not the rule.

So keep your eyes open as usual. Nothing more. I would prefer to have paranoia in the game, not ON the game.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: PBW : Paranoia2
 

Yes, because of that we're starting over again.

And I got a bunch of nice breathables this time, too.