The neutral challenge

[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

[Puke]

if you are getting to bored waiting for 1000 turns to pass, you can go into your options and turn off the log pop-up and the end turn confirmation. then just put something on top of the end turn button (F11? F12?) and go grab a beer or three.

edit: i know, what if you miss the invasion. save the game, let advance for 15 minutes, check, save again. not hard. when invaded, just repeat the Last 15 minutes while watching.

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 31 January 2001).]

[ColdSteel]

Okay, so why doesn't someone experiment with setting this "house rules" game type up just right, in a perfect start location, and then save the game every x number of turns as they play. If it turns out to be a really great game, they could take an early savegame (around 50-100 turns) and post it in the mod section here. Then everyone could download and play essentially the same exact scenario using their own style of play from that point on. Then you could compare the differing experiences of the players afterwards.

Of course this wouldn't work with any mods installed but it certainly would after the next patch is released when everyone will be able to run the default data files anytime regardless of the number of mods installed.

[WhiteHojo]

quote:

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Originally posted by ealbright:
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.

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This is another good reason not to use Nuetrals in the game. Just make sure in the game setup you turn off the Random selection of computer nuetral empires.

Played some more Last nite on my experimental game. It should be noted that my game had tech cost set to Med. By turn 175 I had researched all colony techs and had colonized and converted all the atmospheres to my natural preference. I believe I had 4 GG huge, 1 GG large, 1 Rock Huge, 1 rock large, 1 Ice med & 1 rock tiny in my system.

At this point I decided to do Bills limited exploration idea. sent 1 ship to the S WP - empty but for asteroids. Sent 1 to the NE WP - empy. Sent 1 to the NW WP - BOOM - Mines. Sent another (home never knew what happened to the 1st ship, never transmitted anything I guess) - Boom. repeat - finally ran out of mines and had 1st contact w/Terrans. They had been sitting next door for who knows how long and for some reason mined the WP leading into my system - all w/o ever contacting me - makes me wonder how they knew to mine that point?

Anyway, another observation I found is that with my 11 planets and 7 Cruisers (must keep the population in line) I was in 3rd place out of 13. go figure.

I think I'll try again w/another scenerio. A helpful idea I found - use Gas Giant as your starting race and hope for another colonizable world in your home system - then build nothing but research facilities.

It is definately a fun way to play.



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