[AMF]

I was thinking about a similar topic recently, and how it related to 4X games in general and SEIVG and SEV in particular.

here goes (and forgive me for being verbose, I'm on my fifth pilsner Urquell and I tend to get stupid when drinking and writing at the same time):


I play SEIV and similar games for many reasons, but, above all, I have found that I enjoy the *politics* of these games. In particular, to put it in gaming terms, I find it fascinating to observe and participate in the interactions of unequal powers dealing with each other and their own goals...

The political world is not fair, nor is it equal. And yet, the "lesser" powers in any given unequal relationship can often influence the greater powers far beyond their inherent capacity. Witness the leverage Cuba had over the USSR during the COld War.

I remember, I used to play a PBM before computer gaming, and the backdrop was exactly the same as SEIV..EXCEPT there was a really big power next door to all of us that had mhigher tech yet was "sluggish" and rarely got involved in our affairs as we built up our empires and fought each other..

And, then, look at MOO2 - a great game (lets' be honest now) and one of the reasons it was challengeing, at least the first few times, was becuase the Orions always held the upper hand. You nevber knew when they were gonna sweep down on you.

And, now, I've started a game (zeta quadrant) in which I wanted a similar dynamic - one powerful race, against which all players must fight (as well as each other) to attain the victory conditions. Problem is...it's hard to make a single power much more powerful than the players in SEIVG.

The idea I am trying to convince you of is this: in SE V, it would be nice if you could set up empires that were unequal and/or had pre-controlled regions, planets, fleets, etc...

For example, do you remember the game Traveller? Remember the war game Spinward Marches in which the setting was a powerful Zhodani empire in close proximity to a bunch of small unorganized human empires and the Imperium? Or the game where it was energetic humans on earth (solomani) making contact with the pre-existing but corrupt and inefficient first Imperiumn empire?

It would be nice, great, to be able to model those situations.

But, to do so would require SEV allow setups that were, first off, unequal in characteristics and, second, pre-set in terms of planets, fleets, etc...

The possibilities for such a set up are pretty limitless if it is made moddable.

I mean, there are an amazing amount of space stories out there that start in the middle of their storylines that we could model if we could, at the start of a game, set an empire to whatever we wanted and then run it from there...

Think of it: not only could you have a Star Trek Mod, but you could have a Star Trek on the eve of the Dominion War, or The Star Wars Empire v. the Rebellion right after the Return of the Jedi movie, or anything...

OK, I'm now, officially, babbling. I should go post this in the SEV requests forum I guess....

thanks,

Alarik

Well, it would be nice to be able