Nerfed empires
 

We had a discussion a little while ago about playing a game as an empire and purposly not doing any research. Limiting yourself to the techs available at game start, while playing against AI that operated normally. The result would be an empire that relied on swarming techniques to attack. Lots and lots of low tech escorts.

Don't remeber what thread it was, and this is really tangental to that anyway.

What other sorts of "nerfed" empires can you think of. Ones where you have some intentional handicap, yet not so drastic that there is no posibility of survival, at least short term. And what sorts of strategies would you employ to counteract their weaknesses.

Examples:

An empire that only puts colonies on breathable worlds of their native type.

An pacifist empire that only uses "non-lethal" force. Boarding parties, shield depleters, engine and weapon destroying weaponry.

Can you think of others?

Would it maybe be interesting to have a PBW game where all the players played some kind of limited empire like this. Either as a cooperative game against the AI, or without AI. We'd have to of course have some significant discussion beforehand and make sure that the quirks are somewhat balanced.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Playing as a neutral empire (no leaving the home system)...
At least until you get the 30-turn warning that your star is going nova.

(See exodus scenario below for SE4 v1.49 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

[ April 29, 2004, 17:14: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Neutral empire would definetly be limiting. It's not real fun though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Plus you are really screwed if you get stuck in a system with only a planet or two.

I could see them being somewhat viable if you allow them to send ships out of their homesystem, only not colonize. And if they find a really nice system with lot's of planets they can abandon their original home system and relocate.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

A couple new ones.

How about an empire that doesn't refuel their ships? Scrap the resuply depot on the HW and scrap or park all the ships once they run out of supply. No fair using the QR or solar panels, although adding newly built ships with lots of resupply comps to the fleet would be ok.

A "Semi-Neutral" empire. An empire who's people can't bear to be far from home. Colony ships must always colonize the nearest available planet to them, and other ships can never go any farter then one system away from where they were built. This would be a very defensive race. You'd have problems attacking, especially if there were dead systems between you and who you want to attack.

A Hive empire. I tried to do this in the History 2 game, didn't work too well facing regular players though. All ships have to have a colony component. Even war ships. So you can't even build anything but straight colony ships till you research LC. And your big ships lose a lot of space.

[ April 29, 2004, 17:35: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Nerfed empires
 

In regards to the fuel, how about no quantum reactors, ships have to have supply or take it with them. also starting races, get no racial traits such as organic, temporal, etc, they may pick characteristics like Traders, warriors, etc, only get standard weapons you start with plus, up to missle level 2 only, shields and armor up to level 2 only, no ship research higher then battlecruiser, scanner up to level 2, combat sensors not higher then level 1 same with ecm or maybe level 2, mineral, rads, organics only up to level 2, monoliaths only level 2 or 1,, no stellar manipulation, no ring worlds or sphere worlds, no sun destroyers, high catstropic events, no beam or other type cannons above say level 3, only up to large weapon mounts available, no med or large fighters, only light carriers, PD's only up to level 2 or 3, no other standard weapons above level 2.

just some ideas Mac

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Slow Thinkers: Turn off all your ministers, click the Don't Let The AI Play Missed Turns for Simultaneous Games. Then play only every 5th turn. (You can make it more difficult by not queuing up construction orders, and only moving as far as your movement takes you on the current turn).

[ April 29, 2004, 18:49: Message edited by: spoon ]

Re: Nerfed empires
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">We've got some people that do that now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

You could say it's some sort of hibernation phase where the entire race goes dormant. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Nerfed empires
 

zero reproduction - I have accedentaly done this in one of my games...
im hoping ill find an organic race to ally with and get them to buld me some facilitys...

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Even with minimum reproduction characteristic, you'll get 1% if you have a perfectly optimal planet with jubilant people.

Hard to find or make, but when you do, hang on tight http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Create a "tribble" race: Reduce every trait to minimum except reproduction and env resistance. No advanced traits.

Use my KanesS shipset for this- those traits suit them well=-)

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Did a few races based on MOO2. The Klaxons (Ant-like race) has minimal research, high reproduction, high tolerance, high productivity. Go beserko on other Aliens picnics! Still playing that game, I'll let you know.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Tribbles. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

This would definetly be a disadvantage. Especially the lower ship combat numbers. And with the other numbers lowered as well you'd be hard pressed to come up with a numerical advantage to offset it. You'd have to spread like a virus over the quadrant and really crank out the research facilities to have a shot. I think this would be the toughest challange of any I've heard so far, other then the neutral one. And even the neutral one is likely to kick tribble behind if thye ever try taking them out of their homesystem.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

My race from History 2 also kind of fits this thread. They were "big spenders" with Construction Aptitude, Repair Aptitude, and Maintenance Reduction reduced. Everything they made was oversized, overbuilt, and over budget.

I'm not sure of good strategies to overcome these limits; they weren't very competitive in-game. I guess an emphasis on zero maintenance units would help.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Reminds me of an idea I had some time ago for a 20-player PBW game: GM designs 20 empires that all have some definite weakness, and puts them up for grab. May later modify empires not taken with some improvements until they are taken.
So it's not always playing against the same boring standard no-groundcombat/intel/savy/repair improved-research/defense/maintenance religious hardy-industrialist advanced-storage berzerker empires.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Lots of good ideas:


"trade dependent" - lowered min/org/rad/research/intel and maxxed political savvy.

"stunted" - one/several (non-essential, but desirable) techs are never researched. like Troops or computers, or mines...

"true organic (or other racial)" must only use racial weapons and techs unless there is no equivalant racial item.

"propulsion idiots" - all ships have 2 engine max. Solar Sails are ok.

"blind" - aggressiveness -10% and defensiveness -10%.

"large creatures" - double Life Support and Crew Quarters requirements. Maybe also no Master Computers

"unimaginitive" - no analyzing for techs. All ships of one style for entire game: all carriers, or all beam ships with same weapon or all missile ships, etc.

"politically correct society" - due to government regulations regarding discrimination of farmers and radioactive miners, there must be an equal number of mineral/organic/radioactive/research centers on each planet as much as possible based on number of facility slots.


There's a few.

Slick.

[ April 29, 2004, 22:09: Message edited by: Slick ]

Re: Nerfed empires
 

I remember the thread and recall the discussion about having only one ship size and one weapon type. I thought it would be a great game idea.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">LOL, that's a good one! What about monoliths? And intel? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Nerfed empires
 

* Use no weapons on ships or bases, and no mines or fighters. All fighting by drones, weapon platforms, and troops. Massed troop transports to conquer AI planets.

* My fav since SE3: Fleet commander. You only control one fleet of a few ships, with very few exceptions such as making the AI build a repair ship and/or a tanker to help your fleet survive and operate. AI ministers control the rest of your empire. Can you tip the balance using tactical combat?

* Similar to the above, take over the role of one minister, generally the research minister and/or the ship design minister. Can you design the ships, or plan the research, that will lead your empire to victory?

* Similar to above: Spymaster. Win using only intel, and the only research you can order is to have the AI research Applied Intelligence. Ministers control everything else.

* Local control only. Track the location of your one character, and only give orders to things in the system (or sector!) you are currently in. You can do whatever you want there, but nowhere else. You have to be in a sector which has a research facility to change the research queue. You can only change the build queues where you are, etc. Ministers control the rest.

* Tactical brilliance. You control nothing, except up to ONE tactical battle per game turn. After you say yes to one tactical battle, you can't control any more until next turn. Ministers do everything else.

PvK

[ April 30, 2004, 07:42: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Nerfed empires
 

A few random ideas:

- Paranoia at its finest: all your ships are equipped with weaponry, since you cannot be sure what may befall on them. You are to protect all your wormholes with satellites, or other such defensive measures, while your planets require adequate and immediate protection as soon as they are settled. If you happen to have a Racial tech, you may consider only using these weapons, since you should *not* trust the technology used by your foes, plotting in your back. Beware of strange species, of their shades, and of anything out of the ordinary!

- Berserkers at heart: as we all know, the Berserker culture does not provide with many drawbacks. Therefore, a proper Berserker shall focus on weaponry, disregarding any form of protection such as armour and shields. Alternatively, you may also behave in an unusual manner when dealing with other species, such as declaring war on a whim, breaking treaties, or refusing to make contact to begin with.

- Firm believers in chaos: sadly, your research isn't quite predictable, and so a random project is selected once another project has been completed. Tough luck if you happen to keep on falling on the Organic Extraction technology!

- Carefulness saves lives: only Empires short on their budget put only once every essential component on their ships. Therefore, you are to add several bridges, life supports, crew quarters, quantum reactors (if applicable), ECM, Combat Sensors, cloaking devices, or what fancies you as being essential, on every single ship. You might also want to put a Repair Bay on every ship, just in case. Nay, it isn't redundant, but merely careful planning!

- The *Ahem* quick-blooded culture: your citizens happen to have a rather destructive behaviour, resulting in less facilities on each world (or the scrapping of some of them from time to time), and some of your ships might be destroyed in "friendly" duels. They cannot help being appealed by the idea of blowing up planets or stars as well, making such devices in high demand among this Empire, even if their economy cannot quite afford it. You may also want to make this Empire loses happiness as turns go by, while removing the happiness bonus due to troops.

- Virtue is the base of every life: you cannot help it, you are too nice even with your foes, and will make some gifts to them, even in the midst of a bloody war. Obviously, glassing planets or using Stellar Manipulation to harm anybody is not even considered, as you are so good-hearted. There might also be a shortage of warships, since your people does not quite want to become part of a pointless military, expecting all Empires to behave as nicely as their own.

- Our ships make up their own fleets: there is no proper command of your warships, meaning they work on their own without making any kind of fleet, although you might see associations between ships when needed. It unfortunately means that every ship is highly versatile, as it doesn't have a specialized purpose for the lack of a fleet strategy. An average ship will have the fundamentals, a repair bay, fighter and satellite bays, likely a minesweeper or two, a minelay if you are being followed, a sensor, shields and armour, point defence weaponry, and... If you are lucky, you might even have some space left for weapons.

Hmm, these are nice ideas PvK, assuming you can actually be patient enough to bear with the ministers. (Would it be taken as being amiss if the brillant Fleet Command accused all the ministers of incompetency and sheer silliness?)

Re: Nerfed empires
 

The "Masochistic" happiness type. - They only get happier when they are losing battles and ships, and get angry when they win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Blind: Give every ship an inherent cloaking ability. Don't research sensors.

Only One: You can only have one ship at a time.

Crappy Weapons You can only use Graviton Hellbores.

Tourists You have to put at least 1M (or 10 or 100) people on each warship.

Weak-Willed Whenever the AI sends a message you must comply. If they tell you to abandon a system, you do. If they tell you mineral planets are the best, you go all out colonizing mineral planets. etc.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

How about "Single Minded"

You pick one direction to explore and only go that direction all the way to that edge of the board before picking a new direction.

Whatever teck you pick you study it compleatly before picking a new teck.

If an AI goes to war with you, you stop everyting else till you have killed it.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Don't know if this one's been proposed or not, but:

Clueless: Everything is run by the ministers. You may change only one minister decision per turn, no matter how large or small your empire is.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The enemy is 100% under AI minister control, so you can't be too upset at your own ministers. Mainly one just ignores most of what they do. Playing this way has led to some suggestions that have become AI improvements in the patches. One of the worst used to be the scrap minister, who would destroy fully-trained top-of-the-line ships (fortunately, only those under under AI minister control) when out of resources.

The most annoying AI minister when playing fleet commander, IMO, is the resupply minister, who sends all ships and fleets to a depot when they approach 50% supply, even if they are near a depot, and even if they are not marked for minister control http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif . Solution is to bring a tanker along.

Still, it's very fun and is of course massively faster to play when the AI is running most of your empire for you.

PvK

Re: Nerfed empires
 

Good ideas, especially the ones with the complete AI control except your one fleet.

One game I played I started out with the following restrictions: I could not use warp poitns, research, or build any warships untill an AI empire warped into my system. Wound up being an interesting game, I think I may still have that game on my harddrive.

Re: Nerfed empires
 

What about controlling diplomacy - declare on every empire you meet and never have peace - ask them always for gifts and tribute and surrender even when at war - take on 19 computer empires at once. Or all human empires vs computer empires - thats fun.