NGC5 starting now. (or "I wanna be a God aswell!")(Nearly Gods - the Conflict)

Ruatha · #1 February 29th, 2004, 07:21 PM

There are some games popping up with one God player, i e Zeta Quadrant, Masters of Orion 4...

I was thinking that it might be fun playing god.

So I'm making a map for 3-5 players, each playing an ancient race with a lot of tech directly and powerful starting conditions.
The rest 15-70 races are younger Ai races, weak.

Your job should be to influence these younger races to join your fraction, fight the other god's younger races. (Think Vorlons-shadows).

You aren't allowed to fight any younger races yourself, only other gods.
You aren't allowed to colonize outside your starting system (Good Sphereworld and several good planets for spaceyards in homesystem).
You'll get the entire tech tree for free, the younger races has to research (You'll get it by massive ancient ruins in the homesystem (several hundred tech levels each))
All trade and gifts will be disabled.

Win condition:
All other gods are dead, or all remaining younger races are on your side, meaning atleast military alliance or partnership.

Ideas, pitfalls??

[ March 03, 2004, 10:59: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Intimidator · #2 February 29th, 2004, 07:53 PM

Good idea, count me in, if possibles

Intimidator

Alneyan · #3 February 29th, 2004, 08:22 PM

It would be interesting indeed. I would only have one suggestion: you should either ban Ancient race or reduce/forbid warp openers. Otherwise it would be quite easy to have a look at the planets list, figure out where are the other deities (very easy as the starting planet is a Sphere World, but it would work as well with standard planets), and open a wormhole or two to their systems.

Obviously, in such circumstances the younger races would not be used and the fight would merely be between a few systems and Stellar Manipulation. You could even completely ban Stellar Manipulation, if only destroying stars would not be a very suitable power for a divinity.

Intimidator · #4 February 29th, 2004, 09:41 PM

I agree with Alneyan, about the warp openers. But also think you should have ancient race.

Also how are you gonna control the no-attack restriction on the youngers. And how is an ancient defending against youngers, only passive or may he attack (on small levels) to defend himself. And again how are you gonna control that ??!!??

Intimidator

AMF · #5 March 1st, 2004, 03:26 AM

Let's ee what happens when I get squashed 5 turns into the game...

See my thoughts below on this topic...

----------------------------
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

Quote:

Originally posted by Ruatha:
There are some games popping up with one God player, i e Zeta Quadrant, Masters of Orion 4...

I was thinking that it might be fun playing god.

So I'm making a map for 3-5 players, each playing an ancient race with a lot of tech directly and powerful starting conditions.
The rest 15-70 races are younger Ai races, weak.

Your job should be to influence these younger races to join your fraction, fight the other god's younger races. (Think Vorlons-shadows).

You aren't allowed to fight any younger races yourself, only other gods.
You aren't allowed to colonize outside your starting system (Good Sphereworld and several good planets for spaceyards in homesystem).
You'll get the entire tech tree for free, the younger races has to research (You'll get it by massive ancient ruins in the homesystem (several hundred tech levels each))
All trade and gifts will be disabled.

Win condition:
All other gods are dead, or all remaining younger races are on your side, meaning atleast military alliance or partnership.

Ideas, pitfalls??

AMF · #6 March 1st, 2004, 04:00 AM

Let's ee what happens when I get squashed 5 turns into the game...

EDIT: because I may be many things, but I am NOT a ship or resource optimizer. I came to terms with this a long time ago...

See my thoughts below on this topic...

Quote:

Originally posted by alarikf:
----------------------------
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

quote:
Originally posted by Ruatha:
There are some games popping up with one God player, i e Zeta Quadrant, Masters of Orion 4...

I was thinking that it might be fun playing god.

So I'm making a map for 3-5 players, each playing an ancient race with a lot of tech directly and powerful starting conditions.
The rest 15-70 races are younger Ai races, weak.

Your job should be to influence these younger races to join your fraction, fight the other god's younger races. (Think Vorlons-shadows).

You aren't allowed to fight any younger races yourself, only other gods.
You aren't allowed to colonize outside your starting system (Good Sphereworld and several good planets for spaceyards in homesystem).
You'll get the entire tech tree for free, the younger races has to research (You'll get it by massive ancient ruins in the homesystem (several hundred tech levels each))
All trade and gifts will be disabled.

Win condition:
All other gods are dead, or all remaining younger races are on your side, meaning atleast military alliance or partnership.

Ideas, pitfalls??

[ March 01, 2004, 02:58: Message edited by: alarikf ]

Ruatha · #7 March 1st, 2004, 09:21 AM

Ideas on human players
5000 raceial points
Home system with plenty of variating planets, all breathable and right type.
Starting planet a spehreworld.
Get's all tech through artifacts on turn 2-3.

How to control that the gods don't squash the subjects, don't know, I gotta trust you I guess.
Some battles will happen by mistake, that we'll have to accept.

Killing the stellar manip tree is ok, ancient isn't needed but you can take it if you want to.
Otherwise I'd suggest perhaps religious and temporal? But that's up to the Gods themselfs.
But research should be 50% as it isn't needed.

se5a · #8 March 1st, 2004, 10:09 AM

can you put a system grav shield onto a plannet before the games starts?
or you could have 10 warp points in the system that the "gods" start in.

disabiling warp opners would kind of suck,
you could of corse make that a tech that is not included in the ruins so it has to be reserched....

count me in on this game! I dont mind being a minor race (we could do it with humans rather than AI couldent we???)

Ruatha · #9 March 1st, 2004, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by se5a:
can you put a system grav shield onto a plannet before the games starts?
or you could have 10 warp points in the system that the "gods" start in.

disabiling warp opners would kind of suck,
you could of corse make that a tech that is not included in the ruins so it has to be reserched....

count me in on this game! I dont mind being a minor race (we could do it with humans rather than AI couldent we???)

Sure, human worshippers are better!

Originally I thought of making the Gods start in systems without wormholes.
I can't choose that Stellar manip won't come from ruins, apart from unique tech the tech gained from ruins is randomized when you colonize that planet.
A system shield can't be added before start.
10 worm-holes just gives the opponent a better clue as to where the opponent is.
I think No-ancient and normal map for all is best.
Then you don't know the whereabouts of the opponent Gods.
You're just really powerful races, not allknowingly.

Alneyan · #10 March 1st, 2004, 04:57 PM

The main problem with Warp Openers would be the ease to reach the opponents, bypassing the lesser powers and heading straight for their world. The System Shields Facility will not work either, as it would still be possible to open the wormhole to the system next to your opponent. (Obviously, without the Ancient trait you will need to do some scouting to spot where they lie)

On the other hand, it would make going to the offensive much harder, and how could you do so if other lesser powers could attack you on the way? You might want to instead add a rule along the lines of "you cannot *attack* the lesser powers, but defence is perfectly fine as long as they are the ones on the offensive". (No, the best defence isn't a good offence in this case) I will confess I am not sure how it should work to put the emphasis on these lesser powers.