[PvK]

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 ]