PBW Idea - Population Victory

[Jmenschenfresser]

Another short discussion gave me the idea to suggest this PBW game. Think on this...

What if surrendering were outlawed, as well as total genocide of another race? The second of the two couldn't be completely restricted by the game. A rule or two would have to be made.

However, victory would be determined after so many turns...say 200, could be more, could be less. And it would be determined by population rather than points.

It is easily moddable to restrict players from taking any reproduction bonuses.

How I see it:
-Every 1 million pop at the end gives you 1 point.
-Every 1 million pop of subjugated races gives you .5 points.
-Total genocide would not be restricted as just penalized. Resulting in the subtraction of say 4000 points from the end score. Or something to that effect. The population of a moderate HW.

I can see that plague bombs will now become excellent sabotage weapons.

Also evacuating Population from a system in threat of being invaded is an option.

I see this as a way of encouraging humane playing, and the end game would be composed of major empires and minor ones.

Subjugation would encourage terms of surrender, possibly.

One problem I can see is that once a player's military is beaten, he could just continue to harass the larger player with a few ships here, a few there, knowing full well he won't completely erradicate him. However, for the losing player, that isn't much fun. It would be better to ask for mercy before the carnage begins, so that later you may make a come back.

I guess it is also possible to set each empire to zero reproduction...that way there are a finite number of people in the galaxy, and a finite number of points. Then glassing planets is useless in the long run because you cannot just drop a colony ship on the barren world and gain back some of the loss through reproduction.

Any one interested or see any snags in this?

[Suicide Junkie]

Settings.txt allows you to set the maximum and minimum values for the characteristics of reproduction and environment resist.

Set the max and min both to 100%, and you're set.

Biggest loophole: Organic tech's reproduction bonus and replicant facilities.
Score calculation issue: Players will have to give you their passwords, or turn off their password for the Last turn. This will let you load their turn, and count up all of the people they have stashed away on bases and ships as well as planets.

You might want to have the captured, alien population be worth more than the homegrown variety...
That would make the leading player a very inviting target for a quick boost in score.

You might also consider disabling weapons tech and shield tech.
Then players would have swarms of capture ships and troop transports roaming the galaxy stealing things back and forth. Ramming ships could be the only defense

Also, many vehicles (such as population cargo stations) would sport security stations to limit their vulnerability.

[ October 07, 2002, 17:25: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[geoschmo]

I think that even without limiting reproduction, glassing should not be penalized. It's a self defeating strategy anyway with this kind of victory condition since it's more efficent to capture populations intact then to glass them and then grow your own. That alone is enough of a penalty.

Plus a valid defensive strategy in this would be to use enough troops to repel invaders and cause the destruction of your planets rather than risk them falling into enemy hands. Heck, you might even want to abandon planets you know you are going to lose anyway, unless you think you can take them back sometime soon. I could see a case where a player might 'accidentally' wipe out the Last of a race that was doing this sort of thing.

Geoschmo

[Jmenschenfresser]

Good points.

How I see it, is it will be incredibly hard to tell who exactly is leading for much of the game.

I wouldn't put a penalty on glassing planets. Do it all you want...there is only a penalty on completely killing a race. But as you say, glassing population isn't beneficial in the long run.

I do like the idea of limiting weapons tech, SJ. Perhaps make use of the "target only" properties so that it is more or less impossible to completely destroy ships with weapons...you'd have to ram them. But you could gut them if you had a variety of "only" type weapons--engines, weapons, security, shields, etc. Make ship capture important.

In such a game, you'd think twice before sending out a large transport full of population unguarded.

Hmmmmm.....

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
How I see it, is it will be incredibly hard to tell who exactly is leading for much of the game.

If you play it on PBW you can set up the statstics display page to show the population rank only.

Of course you won't get any indication of subjugated population.

Geoschmo

[ October 07, 2002, 17:52: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Jmenschenfresser]

You will if you cross reference that info with the treaty grid, assuming you've met both races.

Excellent idea, never wouldda thoughta that. Might outta include planets as well so people know when they are about to eliminate someone.