New PBW game : "Mediocrity"

[Geckomlis]

Originally posted by Unknown_Enemy:
Fun game anyway, at least for me and Gravey101. When both Serpent and Yawning players launched a surprise attack on me and gravey, he was not ready for war and I did not have a single warship able to stand the field. Despite loosing more than half of his planets, gravey (and me!) managed not only to survive the most powerful game alliance but finally to crush our opponents.

As leader of the Serpents, I had a great game trying to be the mega-evil empire. The game was fun and challenging. Yawning was a stalwart ally to the bitter end. In regards to multi-player SEIV, Mediocrity was my most enjoyable game ever.

My only complaint: Intel projects! What a way to unbalance and wreck and a perfectly good game…

So, is anyone interested in Mediocrity 2 + No Intel?

Gecko

[Unknown_Enemy]

Something I wondered, why did you not switch to beam weapons after your first attack wave ? What I was indeed fearing was a strategy to keep us off balance. A missile fleet, then a pure beam based fleet etc...etc..

[Geckomlis]

Originally posted by Unknown_Enemy:
Something I wondered, why did you not switch to beam weapons after your first attack wave ? What I was indeed fearing was a strategy to keep us off balance. A missile fleet, then a pure beam based fleet etc...etc..

A legitimate question that I will happily answer. I like thinking and playing “outside the box”. Since everyone else uses beam weapons and ignores missiles/drones in SEIV, I have been trying to develop missile/drone strategies for a long time. I play to win, but my enjoyment of the game does not depend on winning. I had a great time being shot down in flames in Mediocrity.

[geoschmo]

Let me know when the game is done completly and I'll be happy to set up Mediocrity 2. And we can make it no intel if you guys want. The hook for Mediocrity was everyone had identical racial setup numbers, with no traits and 100% on everything. If you want no intel you will be wasting some racial points, but if you don't mind I don't.

Geoschmo

[gravey101]

Gecko, I too have tried the misile/fighter/drone strategy and just cannot get it to be effective in the standard game. It is more effective in some of the mods, but still is a struggle apart from the surprise of the initial attack. PD is just too powerful to make it viable IMO. Intel definitely made the difference in this one. After we were able to break your alliance it seemed the writing was on the wall.

I would be interested in Mediocity 2 as well. Don't really care about intel one way or another.

[teal]

As leader of the Yawning collective I was always in pretty bad shape (yet another reason why the scores as such are screwy! They kept saying I was number #1 when I KNEW I was really in very bad shape...). I had three (count em, three) systems to myself (basically, my home systems) because of being right next to other players and having nebulaue wherever there wasn't another player...

I always thought that Gravey was really in first place and sided with the Serpent against him on that regard. My biggest mistake was waiting too long to attack Gravey, I had basically the same fleet I attacked him with in place 5 or 6 turns before then and was just waiting to attack simultanuesly with Serpent. But my one advantage was that since I did not have anywhere to expand TO, I had been building many more warships than everyone else. I should have pushed my advantage then as hard and fast as I could and hoped for the best. This is just so counter to my usual playing style that I was caught of guard...

Fun game, I just wish someone would come and kill my remaining planets (still in full riot), so that I could withdraw...

[Slynky]

I guess I don't even matter but will post my comments on the game.

I guess my empire didn't matter much because one empire I had a partnerships with dropped the game with no warning and never set the "AI taking control" setting which resulting in the partnerships being dropped and war being declared and me scrambling to deal with enemy ships and lost planets in the rear of my empire.

BUT, I still had one other partnership going on. WHOA! Change #2...that empire dropped the game and guess what...same thing!

Now, I understand people have RL things that interrupt their games but some warning would be nice AND setting the AI switch would be a plus.

Same thing happened in the Anklebiters game (although I didn't have a partnershp)...I get a T&R agreement, then war is declared, then the same empire asks for a T&R agreement again.

Suffice it to say I have lost much of my interest in multiplayer games. I have a tough enough time playing most people without having my game and efforts messed up by others (RL or not). Just too many variables that can come along and ruin your game.

Not to mention they seem to move much slower than other games.

So I will be very selective about future group games I join. I don't think Mediocrity II will be one of them. It was interesting but I can tell you 8 turns to build a DN at a low-pop planet is a real drag .

Best of luck to the rest of you who strive to rise above mediocrity .

[geoschmo]

Actually if a player is going to drop out of a game and no replacment is available I'd rather they NOT set the "AI make no changes" option. As inept as the AI is, an AI that does nothing is worse. It unbalences the game because whoever is lucky enough to be in position to "harvest" it's empire will get a significant leg up on the rest. Of course this is true to a lesser degree even if the AI is doing it's best, but at least then it can be a nusiance to the players if not an actual factor in teh game.

[Alneyan]

I would rather give some areas under AI direction while leaving other fields outside of the AI rule. What seems to bother Slynky is the AI tendency to break treaties with every single neighbour, and I have to concur with him on this one. Having five wars going on when you take over an Empire can be somewhat annoying. I don't mind if the AI is attempting to build some defences, but I don't want these non-entities to even look at the diplomacy screen.

Or perhaps it is already possible to do so with a few tweaks in the AI files? I cannot say as I haven't delved into these mazes regulating what the AI will *try* to do once left alone.

[gravey101]

Slynky it is a shame you have soured on multi-player. I too have endured the same frustrations that you have, but probably to a lesasr extent. Over the years I have deveoped a pretty good feel for who is reliable and who isn't. I wont join a game where I only know 1 or 2 of the players. If I know that 75% or so are probably ok then I will go for it.