One empire, multiplayer?

[CW]

Since you can't save in simultaneous games even though I have mailed MM about it twice before, I'm finding it increasingly hard to run a large empire properly without taking hours every turn. This idea came to me suddenly: what if you have two or more people running the same empire?

In my current game there are about 160 planets, 30 transport & utility ships and 70 construction bases under my control. When the planets finish constructing buildings I always put them to work building units if they don't have a ship yard. Just getting those 30 transports to move those newly built units back to base without filling up those tiny remote colonies, or moving population around to undome planets, or distributing fresh troops & mines & fighters & supply to the fleets in a timely manner takes long enough. Those ships also do things like laying sats & mines, curing plagues, underway repair and resupply. This job alone justifies hiring a full time manager if this is in real life! Above all these logistic overheads there are also 270 combat ships needing orders every turn.

To work out the where those 30 transports go, filling every one of those 270 combat ships with orders, filling all 160 planets and 70 construction bases worth of build queues, deal with the diplomatic traffic etc generally takes me 1.5+ hours per turn. That's WAY too much if I'm running a turn per day! Especially if I HAVE to do it all in one go! (can't save the game remember!) On the other hand I'm a perfectionist and I can't tolerate executing a turn without everything properly set. I also don't trust the minister unless and until it gets much smarter AND knows how to ask me what I want done.

Now what if MM makes a hard code change to the game so I can split the empire up and let a friend to, say, run all the logistic operations for me?

[geoschmo]

This is kind of interesting. You might be able to do something like this now by having two empires. You could gift all your planets, except a few with some resource storage facilities to him. He would have to gift you resources every turn, to keep your fleets from running short on maintenance. I didn't get from your post whether you just wanted to control the ships, or if you were going to build them as well. Either way you could do it, it just would change the balance point somewhat. If he builds the ships, he would then gift them to you.

To simplify matter you could have a protectorate or subgugation treaty between the two empires. As long as you are the one with all the ships, you would be the stronger empire by score because that is the lion's share of how score is calculated.

This actually could be very interesting to see in action.

Geoschmo

[CW]

Emm.. I don't think you got my point...

If I'm going to "out-source" my empire's logistic system for somebody else to run, he would have to know exactly what's on my planets, what I'm building at each planet or ship yard, and the status and stock level of my fleets. So he really NEEDS to have full access to my empire.

Now the only way to do that is to bring my friend over to my place and play the turn together, but that's not a practical solution.

I don't have a solution to suggest, I only have a problem here...

[ 24 January 2002: Message edited by: CW ]

[geoschmo]

No, I understood perfectly what you want to do. You can't do that, obviously.

What I was suggesting was a way to do the same thing, or very close to the same thing anyway, with the current system.

He wouldn't need to know what was on your planets, if you didn't have any planets. SO you give him all your planets. You keep the ships, and do all the grand admiral poobah stuff like fight the wars, and political communications with the enemy. He has all the planets under his control, so he takes care of moving poulation around to maximize resource production and construction, research, all that boring stuff.

He doesn't have to worry about protecting his planets, cause you are doing that with the war ships under your control. You don't have to worry about keeping up the resources, cause he is gifting you all his excess every turn, and building warships and gifting them to you every turn.

You would only need a few planets, mainly for resources storage, not production, and you would need at least one of course so you could remain in contact with the other races.

It wouldn't be one empire like you wanted, but it would be two interdependant empires in a symbiotic relationship with each other.

Not sure if anyone has tried it on that level before, but it would be fascinating to see if it could be done. I mean I know technically it could be done, but it would take a lot of coordination.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

What Geo is trying to do is explain how to do a workaround with the current system.
You need two empires (rebel races would be useful to kick start this, otherwise you must meet, merge & all that.

One player gets gifted all the warships, close support ships, and one single planet (preferably a moon of a planet deep inside the core of the empire)

The other player gets gifted all of the planets, construction bases, and civilian-duty craft (EG: pop transports).

By sharing units, you can get twice the amount in space as any other "empire".
Intel planets will have to be shared between the two empires, and overall, your defense will be have a -40% effectiveness compared to any other race, but your offense will be +40%.

This way, one player "Peace" manages all the planets, gifting the ships built & resources extracted to the other player.
Player two "War", fights battles and gifts crippled ships to the other empire to be sent home for repair & retrofits.

Some big advantages, but some disadvantages too. Watch out for Comm Mimics.
Once you have WarpPoint Manipulation, you can seal off the Starsystem which contains "War"'s planet, and concentrate all the intel on "Peace"'s defense (to block Comm Mimics). (This move restores the intel offense/defense modifier to 100%/100%, Except for the fact that your empire is immune to Crew Insurrection since War controls all the ships, and has no contact with any empire other than Peace.)

Another cool advantage once War's planet is sealed off, is that you can control access to your systems. Any system you wish to restrict access to, place a War-controlled Patrol fleet.
Those systems you allow allies into, but not enemies, use a Peace-controlled fleet.

There you have the advanced "War and Peace" system

[CW]

Okay I got it. Nice explaination. Now my problem is, who wants the boring "peace" job?