Ideas for two new PBW games

[Dragonlord]

Hello all,

Now that several of the PBW games that I was in have terminated, I have some extra time on my hands. It has also given me some ideas about how I'd like to see things done differently in my next PBW games. None of the currently Open Games on PBW appeal to me, so I figured the only way is for me to create the games myself.

My intention with this thread is to see if I can find enough players who would like to join one or both of these games, and perhaps get a discussion going on the various pro's and con's of how to configure a multi-player game for maximum fun.

Now, the two games that I have in mind will differ greatly in galaxy layout, but other than that they will have roughly the same settings. So let me first list the config they'd have in common:

* 7 to 9 players
* NO AI players at all. AI races are too easy to defeat and abuse, e.g. you can always get colonisation tech from them when you meet up, this could give one player an unfair advantage.
* Medium mid-life galaxy
* 3 or 5 starting planets, good value. (to get to the interactions with neighbors stage faster)
* Low-tech start, making initial research decisions more important.
* Intelligence turned off, unless the 1.41 CI bug gets fixed before we get started.
* Game type: v 1.41 plus TDM Modpack 1.72
* Score display: allied only, unless many people want "all scores visible" , perhaps to balance for having no Intel.
* 2500 units, 400 ships max.
* Victory conditions: 400 % of second place, or 1.0 years of peace, after 6.0 years.

So far, pretty similar to the setup I made for the Spiralus game.
Now as I mentioned the galaxy maps for the two games will be pretty different from each other. These are pre-generated maps made through the random-map generator. My race will be Ancient so you can't accuse me of having the advantage of having seen the map before we start :-)

GAME 1
Working title: "War and Diplomacy"
3000 racial points
Standard medium mid-life galaxy, systems spread out fairly easily, everything decently connected to everything.
What would happen:
Everybody would colonise about 6 to 8 systems before running into 3 or 4 neighbors and declaring borders. Diplomacy will be crucial for eventually getting on top of the heap. You'll constantly worry about who you can trust and where the next betrayal might come from. It might be a good idea to form an alliance with 2 other races and try to, as a block, wipe out the rest of the galaxy before you duke it out with your 2 former allies for total galaxy domination. (if you alliance is succesful and you don't wish to fight allies you can also all agree to go for the 1.0 years of peace route).
This would be even more fun if two alliance "blocks" were formed, who start fighting each other. Kind of like teams, but alliances can be "hidden" e.g. all arranged via email while you only have a T&R alliance in-game.
For those of you who were in the Letharg game, it will be similar to that.

GAME 2:
Working title: "Isolation Breakout"

2000 racial points
Warp points anywhere in system
Warp points NOT all connected, but map is generated so that all systems are reachable (in theory) without stellar manipulation.

What this means: the galaxy is divided into 4 or 5 "chunks" and each chunk is connected to one or two other chunks via only one wormhole. Each chunk has room for 2-3 players. Player starting positions are distributed evenly throughout galaxy. You would colonise roughly 8 systems before running into one, maximum two, neighbor(s).
Controlling choke points will be more important even than usual. You'll have to negotiate with your neighbor for access rights to his territory if you want to pass through to establish contact with other players. Or you can try to wipe him out and take control of the entire chunk...but even if that works, you might find that the players in the next chunk have formed an alliance and haven't weakened themselves yet by war. You can also decide to quietly develop your corner of the galaxy while researching stellar manipulation as fast as you can. Why? Because all the "chunks" are very close to each other measured in lightyears, so you could open up a wormhole to the next chunk, and perhaps ally with the players there against the neighbor(s) with whom you share a chunk.


Your comments will be more than welcome !
Dragonlord