Zero Resource Production game idea

[geoschmo]

We have the high tech start for a zero research game, and someone mentioned a zero population growth game with your population fixed at the begining of the game. That got me to thinking about a zero resource production game.

There are two ways it could be done. The first is to fairly simple. I call it a "Fixed-Income Game". You just edit the Minimum Empire Min/Org/Rad Generation settings in the settings.txt to what ever you want. The higher the better. Then you remove the resource generating facilities from the faciliites.txt file, and viola! Every empire is now on a fixed income for the duration of the game. Your military power is limited only by your research, intelligence, and construction capacity. You still need to expand an build colonies for reasarch and space yards, but you never have to worry about building resource facilies.

The scond way would be with a finite resources game. This way is a bit more complicated, but I think a bit more interesting as well. I got the idea from something Mensch said in the Scortched Earth thread. Curently I am calling it a "Half-Life game", but only because I can't think of anything better.

First you raise the minimum empire point storage to some really hign number. Then you raise the plr planet values to really high numbers. This controls the resources on your homeworld. Then you raise the resource generation values for the level 1 resource faciliites to really large numbers. The values you are looking for is what ever value will max out your empire storage, and deplete your home planet value within a couple turns after the game start. Then you raise the cost to build new resource faciliites so that noone could ever build one.

The result of this is a couple turns after game start all the empire reach their max points in storage, and then for the rest of the game you live off that. This effectivly puts a time limit on the game, but not in number of turns, but in the amount of construction you do. It would add a lot of dynamics to the game. You would need to balance your fleet maintenance and not have more ships around then absolutly needed to get the job done. You'd want to really try to capture enemy vessles and planets, cause that would save you fom having to spend the cash to make them yourself.

Comments?

Geoschmo

[Nodachi]

The "Fixed-Income Game", or "Galactic Domination on $10 a Day", sounds interesting. As an added twist make space yard build rates insanely high. That would force players to really prioritize their building throughout their empire.

For the "Half-Life game" fighters would rule and the AS would be hated! Hell, take out the self-destruct device and watch the fun as everyone tries to steal each others ships!

Either one (or both) of these games would be a fun change of pace.

[Mylon]

Question: Do planet value changing facilities work in finite resource games? If so, how much do the generate?

[Jmenschenfresser]

This is an interesting concept. You will have to be careful with two things. Total resources and victory conditions.

I can see that if you don't allocate enough resources per player it may be possible for Player A to destroy Player B's fleets, but Player A won't be able to glass all of Player B's planets. In other words, if a player devotes significant resources to defense, it might be practically impossible for player A, whose given all of his resources to offense, to win.

That is why I mention Victory conditions. With a set game like this it might be fun to set up objectives like most war games. So the object isn't "total domination" but rather a small set of fixed conditions or objects. That would make it easier on you to set up the numbers.

You could use a modified map with starting positions and a few added planets named 30 Points or 60 Points, etc.

Just suggestions.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Mylon:
Question: Do planet value changing facilities work in finite resource games? If so, how much do the generate?

Yes they do. They add resources as a percentage of planetary value. The more value the planet has remaining, the higher the value improvemnet planet will add to it. Conversly if you allow the planet to get all the away to zero you will get nothing from the value improvement plant.

For the Half Life game I would suggest taking out the vaule improvement plants. Either deleting them, or making them too expensive to build.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
You could use a modified map with starting positions and a few added planets named 30 Points or 60 Points, etc.

I like this idea. You could even do it with a random map. Have a quadrant with three different system types, red star, blue star, white star. And give x number of points for people controlling each color star. You'd need to have a definition of "control" then. Your planet idea could be done as well. Simply add a special planet description to the sector types. "This planet is worth X points" or whatever. You wouldn't know till the game started how many total points are up for grabs. Every so often you have the players post how many ponts they control, and then when someone has enough to "declare victory" you simply have someone look at their turn and verify it.

Prety cool idea. Wouldn't even have to be done with the no resource production games. Any game could do this.

[Jmenschenfresser]

If you are talking planets, I would say you get the points if you have a colony on the planet....blockaded or not, enemy troops or not.

I wouldn't suggest stars because there are too many possibilites for swindle there--cloaking, mines, Last minute moves by allies, etc.

I was thinking the planets would have to be modded because it is first off possible that all point planets are within one hex of one player. Or they might all be gas or something like that. You could designate that all players take rock as their planet type, but limit it so that no one takes, say the None atmosphere type. Then make the Victory Planets rock/none.

[geoschmo]

With a small number of victory point planets you are probably better off making a map. What I was thinking of was a little larger in scale. You would have enough vicroty point planets so that the randomization of the game would scatter them around pretty good. Someone might get lucky and have a couple in their home system or close by or something. But those wouldn't be enough to declare victory.

In the case where the planet is the wrong type, the player would either have to accquire that colony tech. Or you could allow a player to have the points for that planet without a colony as long as they keep ships there and prevent anyone else from colonizing it or having ships in the sector.

Geoschmo

[ October 10, 2002, 15:39: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[geoschmo]

One thing that just occured to me with the fixed income game. Since Resource production would be indepenadant of your planets, your empire wouldn't be hamstrung by unhappy populations anymore. As long as you keep them from going totally rioting on you they will keep building stuff. And your bases can build even if all your planets are rioting.

In this kind of game you could play a true Pirate or Nomadic race with no planets at all, without any extra modifications to the data files and have a viable chance at winning.

A bunch of bases hidden in a nebulae could support your fleet. At least until the other guys came along and removed the nebulae.

This is more intersting the more I think about it.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

And a variation on the Fixed Income game. Make the minimum empire generation a smaller number, like the equivalent to a single homeworld or three in a standard game. Just enough to get a start. Then change the "remote mineing decreases asteroid value" to false, and now you have changed the economic model completely. For an empire to become large and support a lot of ships you have to build remote mining bases over planets and asteroids. Or plant colonies to generate research. It's a trade off. Remote mining gets added to your minimum empire generation, instead of replacing it as planetary mining does. And you don't need space ports.

If I did this I would probably separate the remote mining comps and make two kinds. The standard ones for bases and ships and a lower a smaller size lower resource generation one for the early satelites.

Geoschmo