A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

Has anyone thought about this? I have seen a few team games advertised, and been in a couple myself. I was less then satisfied. It's just a personal preferance of my own that I don't really care for all the trading. It's just too cumbersome with the Se4 system. Victory in Se4 being so heavily dependant on economic and tecnological advantages, a team game becomes more about setting up a cooperative research plan and implementing it. The battles are almost an after thought. To me it's a chore, and a bore.

What I could maybe get interested in would be a team game where you make your partnership treaty with your teammates and that's about it. None of the ship and tech trading. I wouldn't object to a little planet swapping, just so you could get a base in an important part of your allies empire and assist in his defense. But the main assistance would be in working together in the military campaigns. You attack on the left, I'll attack on the right, that sort of thing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Anyone else think like me? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have never thought of doing a team game like this. I think it would be much more interesting then the way most team games are played.

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

I like the sound of this. How about a 3-3 or 4-4 game along these lines? I could "host".

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I understand your thoughts, I think, but it's not really necessary to set things up that way. I've lost count of all the battles we've had in our Ratings Challenge Team game (4 of us)! The trick? No mines (and possibly high tech cost). But trading/gifting tech hasn't caused the focal point to be THAT...getting ready for the next fight has been the real concern.

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

Ummm, sounds good. But how would you enforce the no trading tech part? I don't think that your enemys will tell you if they are cheating... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">YES! That is exactly how a team game should be.

"setting up a cooperative research plan and implementing it" = DULL DULL DULL. Wasn't there a sketch about this? kind of like this:

Counsellor:
Well cooperative research is rather exciting isn't it?

Anchovy:
Exciting? No it's not. It's dull. Dull. Dull. My God it's dull, it's so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL.

Counsellor:
Well, er, yes Mr Anchovy, but you see your report here says that you are an extremely dull person. You see, our experts describe you as an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in cooperative research they are a positive boon.

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Easy. Go to the Game Settings menu in the New Game setup, and click off "Allow Technology Gifts/Tributes/Trades".

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

geo i do not have the time to play in it.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif but i can create the map

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, at least my option slows down the process. A total ban on all cross-pollination would require something along the lines of the Star Trek Mod (where each race has its own tech tree), and who has the time to code that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ February 06, 2004, 14:32: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Easy. Go to the Game Settings menu in the New Game setup, and click off "Allow Technology Gifts/Tributes/Trades". </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And have you forgotten about ship trading, the main vector for tech trading in games where direct tech trading is not allowed?
I just checked, and it doesn't seem possible to allow planet trading without ship trading, (and through that, trading of any technology that can be placed on a ship.)
Why bother boarding a high-tech ship when you can buy one? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
At least allies are not able to, while in a treaty, board each other's ships.

Re: A team game, but without all the trading and stuff...
 

I'd agree that tech trading is not good in a competetive game with skilled and trusting players. Unfortunately, SE4 makes it extremely easy and cheap compared to the advantages, even using the option to disallow tech trades. The restriction of having to use ships helps only a little, mainly because some techs actually don't have any ship components they can be learned from. However that actually increases the amount of work and thinking needed to effectively collaborate on research.

I'd recommend disallowing ALL trading, using the game option that makes it impossible. Allies could try trading via ship capture, but that will require risk, breaking their treaty, and inconvenience etc.

Seems to me that a research treaty already provides a good and resonable level of advantage to research. Also, even on High research cost, experienced players often get "the good stuff" out of the tech tree rather quickly, anyway.

Despite no free time, I'd want to play in a team game if the settings were like:

All trading disabled
One homeworld
High research cost
Low start tech
No AI's nor neutrals
A balanced start-costs mod such as: P&N, PvK Balance (preferably with Limited Resources on), Proportions, AIC, or Adamant.
Max ships and units in space both 20000
Surrender disabled

PvK