Warning, this one's really long.
Totally overriding the maintenance I'd call cheating.
Now this:
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I also have done some work on what combination of ship size to component arangement gives you the most bang for the buck in score to maint ratio.
Is the sign of a good player.
Your trick about building colony ships faster is also a great idea. Exploiting the ability to retrofit a ship an infinite number of times in one turn, that's cheating.
AI and resource manipulation for your own benefit based on study, practice, and an understanging of the mechanics: Good gameplay.
Finding ways to avoid following the rules and circumventing the mechanics: cheating.
It is a moderately thin line, but you should all be able to recognize it. We expect anyone who considers themselves a champion at a game to be able to make that call.
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I think the maintenance issue, coupled with the AI surrendering so easily, totally unbalances things with regard to the contest. I'd much rather see it be the player vs all other AIs, who have a huge bonus, and the player isn't allowed to communicate with the AIs at all.
Well, let's say we hold a player vs player contest. We can't rightly say that the winner is the top player can we? S/he's only the best who showed up to that tournament. High score is the best tool, but it's not a perfect tool--even in arcade and pinball (though it's close to perfect in some of those cases).
Simply defeating the AI? Please, even all AIs vs the human with all AIs getting high bonuses, isn't much of a challenge. Even if it was, you know we'd have more than one person win. What criteria do we use to determine the victor then? It's like calling someone who finished Mario Brothers a world champion just for completing the game. Overcoming the game is nothing, you need to ovecome the other players. We could combine it with fewest turns, then highest score Last, but even then it's iffy. So someone's fast and aggressive, are they the best just for that? Is crushing several AIs faster than they can act truly the sign of a better player than one who can build up and control the greatest portion of the galaxy and get the maximum value out of his holdings? I don't necessarily think it is.
I actually like the way this contest is turning out. The top players are finding fascinating techniques and we're into the empire building side of the game as much as the enemy crushing side. The winner will be the person who crushes the AIs fastest, and then develops the most in what time remains. S/He's got to excell at both aspects of the game, not just one or the other.
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Oh well, it's probably a bit late to change things that drastically.
Technically, not. Our rules and terms & conditions clearly state we can alter anything at any time in the interests of fairness and avoiding cheating. However, this has to be weighed against the severity of the disturbance to the players.
This is where the PC platform is a problem compared to our origins in the arcade world. Arcade ROMs rarely changed and basically had only a couple of settings. We declare the original factory settings to be the official and only accept scores on those settings played on actual arcade machines. Simple. Even easier than consoles. PCs... Boy they're a mess.
Not to mention how with new games the bugs and cheats are being found continually. There's really not much left for people to discover about Pac Man. Three people can score "perfect games" meaning get every dot on every level, eat every bonus fruit, and eat all four ghosts off each power pellet all on their first man. It takes about 4 hours (nearly 6 the first time, but they've perfected the technique since then). These guys know EVERYTHING about the game. I've seen a tape where Billy Mitchell just walks away from the machine for over 15 minutes to take a break and the ghosts don't get him. He knows the patterns well enough to know where and when such things are possible. No rules changes will be made in that game, I assure you.
Unlike the arcade games, we can't hold a PC world championship a year or two after release since no one is still playing the game. We have to aim at the first couple of months. But that means the game is in flux with regard to bugs and cheating. It's an ugly situation for the rules. especially here in SE4, where we usually play Last-man standing but this contest is high score. Bugs we never saw before because we were never looking are turning up.
I have no problem with the AI surrendering, because in a high-score contest, you're not competing against the AI, you're competing against the other humans in the contest. If you can get them to surrender faster than me, then you're a better economist player than I am. If I can enslave them faster than you can force surrenders, then I've got the advantage. This is all acceptable and even desireable. You should see what some of the people can do in the top tier of gaming. Using the computer as a resource is a key strategy to achieving the best scores in any game.
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Either that, or base victory on something other than the score.
We thought about first person to a set score (we were thinking 5 million or so), and we may yet introduce that contest at a later date. I've almost got our founder to agree to a SE4 team ladder and/or contest. We could really do just about anything you guys ask for. It all depends on how much of a success this one turns out to be.
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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at
www.twingalaxies.com.
[This message has been edited by Nyx (edited 24 January 2001).]