The neutral challenge

[WhiteHojo]

My original 100 arbitrary limit has been shown by my experience anyway, to be a little soon.

100 turns in an Isolated empire is not that long when compared to 100 turns in a regular game. The amount of micromanagement is minimal. So I would take Bills idea after adapting it to my take on "full exploitation" of a system and use that for expansion, removing any arbitrary turn limit.

I think the "Nuetral Challenge" should probably be labled as an "Isolation Challenge". That seems to be the spirit of what the rules have evolved into. No outward exploration until all available options have been exhausted.

Limiting exploration to one system after Full Exploitation could be justified in various ways. It could mean that your empire has not discovered Warp Points but simply some feasable way to travel to the nearest system - slow colony ships, etc.

The key is to limit your exploration and expansion of your empire into the rest of the galaxy until you have achieved 1st contact.

At least this is my belief, subject to modification upon further play testing.

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[Barnacle Bill]

I've gone 400 turns so far without first contact. I seem to be in such a corner that the AI's may never find me, unless I go out after them.

The definition of full exploitation that requires you to develop all the colonization techs and convert all the atmosheres would tend to make that even longer.

However, I see that as a matter of personal choice. I enjoy the game like this, but those looking for a lot of conflict would not. Don't forget the long term promise of challenging conflict, when you make first contact & discover you are WAY behind

[WhiteHojo]

My worst fear - play 400+ turns and 1st contact is a fleet of 20+ Heavy Carriers from the EA who promptly "annex" my little empire into theirs w/no time to build up my defenses.

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[E. Albright]

Well, the <ahem> fun twist to what I was proposing was something more along the lines of you being able to send 1 fleet through 1 warp point every 100 turns. If you only send 3 colony ships and there's 10 inviting planets, tough; it's gonna be another 10 years before the other 7 colony ships get there (or if you're really nasty, 10 + build time + 10...). But then I've always wanted a space game which makes you plan ahead years by making your ships take years to get from point A to B...

[E. Albright]

This may be an unnecessary point, but what if you fully exploit your system, go next door, and find a neutral? I'd be inclined to stay isolated, but that's me.

[randal7]

I tried something similar a while back. I got bored with the game I was playing because I was too far ahead so I switched to the Last-place neutral. This was around 120 turns into the game. I played for a while and was fortunate enough to discover another neutral nearby. I destroyed their fleet and all of their planets in successive turns but they would not surrender even when reduced to their home planet only. I also could not get ANY other race to agree to ANY type of treaty. I E-mailed Malfador to see if this was a bug or why this happened but never heard back. Have any of the rest of you encountered this problem? Like most of you, I really liked the idea of starting from a significant disadvantage, and was disappointed that I was unfairly handicapped by not being able to make peace with anybody or get a surrender from a defeated foe.

[pathfinder]

I am currently doing a modification, went 150 turns, then sent scout out --- found 1 system with planets and the other empty. So I am in full expansion/exploitation of that syste, plus just got gasss colonization. So I may sit and fully get things up to snuff, then send another scout out.

I did it this way because I honestly just got bored...so I modified the concept a bit ;p