New PBW game idea - comments?

[AMF]

This is a cross-post to with the Galactic Sterilisation thread, where the idea originated. - that topic started out talking about a scientific hypothesis (based on some astronomical observations) about periodic sterilisations of the Galaxy.

I want to suggest a PBW game based on it.

My purpose in posting the following game idea and settings is to see if there is sufficient interest in the game described below. If so, I will get to work on making it happen. Let me know if you would play such a game as described below.

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Backstory for Zeta Quadrant Game:

Your people expanded into your galaxy for over a hundred years, and created an interstellar empire. In that time, your archaeologists and scientists occasionally found ruins of some long extinct ancient and powerful civilization. Some of these sites dated from billions of years ago, some as ?recent? as a few hundred thousand years old. And some of the sites were guarded with Machine Entities left behind by the ancients, as protectors.

As your race expanded into the galaxy, your scientists made an alarming and incontrovertible discovery: the galaxy is doomed. Your space telescopes confirmed that giant black holes were forming at the center of your galaxy. These doomed your civilization, for just before their formation, these black holes released a huge shockwave of Gamma radiation that overwhelmed the galaxy in so much energy that no life in your empire escaped. Your scientists also discovered evidence that indicated that this has been occurring almost regularly every billion years or so.

But, it was clear that at least one race survived this tragedy in the past: the Ancients. Your scientists speculated that only through the creation of a giant sphereworld (to provide a safe haven behind millions of miles of dense armour shielding) could any race survive these periodic galactic sterilizations. That must be how the Ancients did it.

That became the Last best hope of your people: to find a Sphereworld of the Ancients in which you could obtain a haven inside to survive the radiation shockwave. And, over the years, as the shockwave approached, your space telescopes and instruments did detect, in a far off and isolated quadrant of the galaxy, readings that can only be indicative of just such a sphereworld.

A massive expedition was launched under your command, in which giant colony ships carried billions of your people to the distant Zeta quadrant. The trip took hundreds of years, as there were no warp points to the quadrant. But the survival of the race was your goal, and cryo chambers are wonderful things. Behind you, the advancing shockwave destroyed all those left behind. The Galaxy was laid waste and the shockwave continues to expand, and will soon encompass the Zeta Quadrant as well. Time is not your ally.

As your colony ships approached the Zeta Quadrant, your frozen crew members were awoken, and massive colonies were established to begin the detailed search for the Sphereworld and your race?s survival. The advancing shockwave from the core of the Galaxy will reach the Zeta Quadrant in about 45 years, lending a keen sense of urgency to your efforts.

The strange properties of the Zeta quadrant that prevented warp holes to connect to it, also tragically prevent your current deep space arrays from zeroing in on the exact location of the Sphereworld you seek. But, your ships? recording systems did notice a danger: you are not alone. Other races have come to the same conclusion and also arrived in the Zeta Quadrant. Furthermore, there is evidence that your arrival in the Zeta Quadrant has awoken some of the Ancient?s Machine Entities, doubtless to protect the Sphereworld.

The Zeta Quadrant, the Last remaining habitable portion of the Galaxy, will be sterilized in 45 years. The only ones who will survive will be those in the Sphereworld...which is somewhere in Zeta Quadrant.

Settings

Game ends on turn 450, unless there is an agreed upon end before that (I see that as more likely). The only winner will be those living in the Sphereworld at that time. This Sphereworld is located somewhere in the map. There may or may not be other weird things going on in this map, for it is an anomalous section of the galaxy. Lastly, there is the Machine Entity Race. They are the product of seedings by the Ancients, left behind to grow and evolve and dedicated to protecting Ancient sites. Your scientists presume that the Machine Entities are the Protectors of the Sphereworld. This means that, while they will not enter the Sphereworld, they will do everything possible to defend it and destroy invaders. And they are gifted with knowledge of the Zeta Quadrant, unlike yourselves, who are all new to it.

House Rules

Communication should be limited to in-game methods to represent the difficulty inherent in communicating with aliens as well as to simulate time delays and their effect in coordination also.

Role Playing is not essential, but it is appreciated.

Game Settings: The peculiar characteristics of the Zeta Quadrant lead to the following settings:

· No mines or fighters (as the background energies and radiations make smaller craft such as these non-viable)
· No Ancient Race Characteristic (you?re all new here!) The ONLY exception to this is the Machine Entities, which will have the ancient race trait. (I, the game host, will be playing these guys, since I want to play in this game, but I made the map, so I need to have the Ancient Race trait to account for the fact that I will know that map)
· No Stellar Manipulation (the Zeta quadrant?s background energies and the effects of Ancient technologies prevent such technologies from having any effect)
· Starting tech: Medium, tech cost: high
· No surrender (Hey, the fate of your race is at stake!)
· No tech trades, but ship trading is allowed.
· Intel will be OFF (since this is a fight for the total survival of your race, your people are far too wary and patriotic to consider selling secrets or letting aliens sabotage their race)
· Map is Large, and Unique.
· Max of 20 players.
· Turns will be Automatic every 36 hours (to make the game run quickly)
· Standard SEIV Gold (1.84)
· Races: 5000 points. (no Ancient Race trait allowed)

[Unknown_Enemy]

With time limit and that sense of urgency, 5000 racial points are a bit too much. Maybe 3000 ?
Player have to make some choices......

[Fyron]

3000 is still a lot of points. How about 0? 0 racial point games are quite fun. No more super empires!

[AMF]

yeah, I have no trouble with a zero-based game, in fact I greatly prefer those. Problem is, with the current backstory, I need to have enough points to create a nasty killer machine race with the ancient race trait...hard to do with 0 points. I'll look into modifying the backstory perhaps...

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
3000 is still a lot of points. How about 0? 0 racial point games are quite fun. No more super empires!

[geoschmo]

Well. it depends. If your objective with the machine race is to not actually compete, just make it more interesting for the other players and keep involved yourself, there is no reason you couldn't have more racial points then them. Simply set the game for zero points to add in the other empires, then bump it up to whatever before adding in your machine race.

Of course if you are actually planning on trying to win the game, this would be cheating.

[AMF]

That sounds like a good idea. I really do just want to keep it interesting for them, and provide a challenge for certain aspects of the game...I didn't know you could do what you describe. I'll try that out...

thanks,

Alarik

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Well. it depends. If your objective with the machine race is to not actually compete, just make it more interesting for the other players and keep involved yourself, there is no reason you couldn't have more racial points then them. Simply set the game for zero points to add in the other empires, then bump it up to whatever before adding in your machine race.

Of course if you are actually planning on trying to win the game, this would be cheating.