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

I like to explore and not knowing what´s in the next system is fun.

Once you have entered a partnership treaty with an ancient race, you´re stuck with his ability. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

I have a suggestion:

How about 4 different levels of ancient?

Level 1: (500 racial points) All adjacent systems.

Level 2: (1000 racial points) All adjucent systems + a radius of 4 systems

Level 3: (1500 racial points) All adjucent systems + a radius of 9 systems

Level 4: (2000 racial points) All systems.

What will we gain from this:

+ It will cost you more to have the whole galaxy. Would it be worth spending your racial points on a 2000 points ability to get it?

+ More fun, but you still get an advantage by spending 500 points.

+ 1000 racial points is alot, and you may not want to give 1000 racial points to your ally.

+ I won´t get the whole galaxy, when I enter a partnership treaty with an ancient. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

- I can´t think of any, maybe you do?

Leoric

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

I've never gotten a partnership treaty with an ancient race but it sounds like if you do you get a 1500 point trait for free. Doesn't seem fair but hey, who am I to talk about fair. I need all the help I can get sometimes.

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

But ancient race does not tell you what colonies are in the system... and I don't think partnerships with ancient races would do anything... you only share your "line of sight" not your exploration. Being an ancient race just means that the entire galaxy is explored BEFORE and colonies were settled (you will not see homeworlds either).

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

I got a treaty with an ancient race and poof, the whole galaxy was explored for me. I think it was a partnership

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

I like to discover every system myself.

I like it that way. It´s like when you played this game for the first time not knowing what to research and you learned by doing.

Another thing: If I picked Ancient, I would not ever enter a partnership with another race. It would be like throwing away your racial points.

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

Well I stand corrected... perhaps we should write MM about changing this so partnerships don't confer the "exploration" bonus of Ancient empires.

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

Ancient Race....i personaly realy do not like it. Can say i hate it.
See, in single-player it is not SO powerful (although takes out the fun of exploring);
But when it comes to multi-player...you know what people are doing?

(How To Win In Few Turns)
Create a warp-point open ship, save, open to a system. If the enemy isnt there, load the save, and open to the next system. And so untill you find the enemy. Players who either dont know about this, or (like me) prefer to still play fair, are in a huge disadvantage.

If it was in my power, i would instantly remove this racial advantage from the game, or change what it does.

I like the idea of "All adjucent systems + a radius of 4 systems" (from original post) and think its the best what could be put into Ancient Race advantage.

TO answer the original topic - yes, it does. It realy does.

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Emperor Klis't of the Taera Republic.
Proud member of the League of Empires.
E-Mail -
Ora Planet - Taera Republic - League of Empires

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

I personally enjoy the ability, I hate exploration so It's nice to know about where everything is, and it's an awful suprise to appear in a home system and have a major attack fleet blown out of the sky http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ahh good times.

The ability is an advantage primaraly to colonization but in general combat it's useless because the target empire often has a little planet out of the way somewhere preventing you from killing them off...

It doesn't offer that much of an advantage...

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

TaeraRepublic, how does that have anything to do with Ancient Race? You don't have to have seen a system to open a WP to it..

As far as seeing what the other players are doing- first off, I don't think it does this unless you have Ommipresent view on. Second, you pay racial points for it. Points that could be used for things like combat, resource production, special racial tech areas, etc.

EDIT: Yup. It just lets you see what is in the system like you had scouted and left. Doesn't show you where players are, etc.

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 22 April 2001).]

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

Thanks for the input.

I´m glad that I´m not the only one.

Leoric

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

Aha! I was right... and I bet if you "partner" with an Ancient Race and OMNIPRESENT VIEW is turned off, you won't get automatic exploration either... Personally I never use Omnipresent view, if I want to know what's going on in a system I should have to build a patrol ship or a sat or something.

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

I have never picked the Ancient Race because it doesn't seem worth the points but I did look at one of the neutrals, #6 I think, and they have the Ancient Race trait. Go figure. Maybe it is suppose to keep you from nuking them right away.

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

Andrey,

Why are you promoting that nonsence like its a good idea.

It's cheating, and it crap. It was cheating when I left the borg becuase of it, and it will always be cheating. And as long as players persist in that nonsence SpaceEmpires will always be useless for Multiplay.

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

Sorry for the rant,

Anyway, On topic.

Personally I feel that makes the game harder,

I use the map to tell where I've been and what I still need to explore, when I Partnership with a Ancient Race, Boom theres everything I get horribly lost

At least with SE4 i know which races not to ally with, in 3 it was random you couldn't tell.

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

Darwin, you misunderstood me.
Glad you you understood that (NEVER was a cheater, not now and never will be...I always say to all my friends cheats....hmm....are bad).

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Emperor Klis't of the Taera Republic.
Proud member of the League of Empires.
E-Mail -
Ora Planet - Taera Republic - League of Empires

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

I would prefer it if ancient race's could not share all the map, just the systems they inhabit.

It is useful in multiplayer as it is a great strategic (only one way to say it mr bush) value. But it a dangerous disadvante to other players.

It shouldn't be sharable in any form. only share the systems the ancient race has been in or is in.

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

My 2 cents:

1) As has been mentioned, Ancient costs quite a few points that could be spent on other advantages.

2) It makes no sense to try to restrict the sharing of map knowledge - it's pretty basic information (where planets and warp lines are), so saying "you can know it but you can't share it" seems to me to make zero sense.

3) If a player wants to spend their racial points on this and then give it away, that's their loss/bargaining chip. Big deal.

4) In general, I don't usually use it, because I enjoy exploring. As people have said, some like it and some don't. So the choice is a good thing.

5) I don't think it's an underpriced advantage.

6) The point about cheating in MP with warp ships A) has little or nothing to do with the Ancient advantage, and B) only is possible if not using Simultaneous mode for a multi-player game, which I would hugely recommend over turn-based MP games anyway. That sort of cheating is possible in almost any turn-based MP game that has immediate resolution, and in several other ways besides with warp ships - if you have to play such a game, I suggest finding good players who understand that cheating just spoils the game. Again, use simultaneous mode!

PvK

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

Good points, PvK. (BTW - how did you get rank "SpecOps"?).

Another possible mod for Ancient Race - for the AIs that have this ability (the Drushocka and whichever neutral has it, plus any others), make the maximum treaty offered/accepted be Military Alliance. That would prevent exploiting an AI to get Ancient Race abilities. As for preventing human players from sharing, well, that's trickier. Too bad you can't turn off treaty levels like you can turn off research/ship/planet/system trading...

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

For the life of me I can't figure out why a neutral would be given the Ancient Race trait. They don't leave their system do they? Seems like they should have been given a different one.

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

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
For the life of me I can't figure out why a neutral would be given the Ancient Race trait. They don't leave their system do they? Seems like they should have been given a different one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

maybe they have already been there, seen it, and done it. then they found out it was not all that exciting and went home to live simple yet idyllic lives, and eons later after they have forgotten their glorious past and lost all of the technology they used to have, some upstart race comes by and glasses them for their colonization tech while they are all hanging out on the beach in lawn chairs. dont you feel like a bastard now?

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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Visit the Spoogy Federation at:
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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