Ancient Race too powerful?

PvK · #1 January 29th, 2002, 12:51 AM

I'd say I sort of agree with most of the points on both sides, and end up thinking it's balanced enough, although I would really like to see better fog of war in the form of only seeing the Last known information, which would probably be taken just before homeworld placement for Ancient Race players.

Personally, I tend not to like to choose AR because to me it's more fun to have to explore than to know where most things are already. Even purely competitively, I'd prefer to buy advantages like speed, combat, and production/maintenance bonuses.

All in all I think it's an interesting advantage and not generally undervalued, although clearly a player can either make a lot of use out of it, or not.

PvK

tesco samoa · #2 January 29th, 2002, 01:09 AM

In a game with mix human and computer players the ancient races always live a long life. Everyone gives them gifts etc... until the alliance.

Perhaps our beef with the ancient race is focusing on the wrong area.

The problem is when you encounter a race and instantly know this race has the ancient ability.

So your not going to attack but be-friend.

And then your get the ancient race ability for free.

So perhaps the option to hide racial traits should be added to the game.

PvK · #3 January 29th, 2002, 02:30 AM

quote:
Originally posted by tesco samoa:
...So perhaps the option to hide racial traits should be added to the game.

Yes, and that's not the only reason it'd be good.

PvK

geoschmo · #4 January 29th, 2002, 04:42 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Bman:
It becomes even more powerful in Simultaneous games (ie games against other people): In a simultaneous game, your ship stops when it enters a unexplored system. With Ancient Race, your ship moves happily along since all systems are explored.

Actually your ship doesn't have to stop when it enters an unexplored system. If you give your ship the command to warp into the unexplored system, and then give it a move too command, then click on the unexplored system in the galaxy map in the lower right, then click in the sector in the middle of the unexplored system in the system map.

If you do this you will see in your orders queue for the ship "Move to (current system name) (x,y), Warp, Move to (unexplored system name) (6,6)"

It even gives you the name of the system even though you don't actually know it yet.

Now this doesn't work if two things happen.

One is if there is another race in the new system and you still have the box checked to clear orders when encountering enemy ships.

The other is if you click on the wrong unknown system in the galaxy map. Sometimes in a high density quadrant you can't always tell from the position of the systems and warp points which warp point goes to which unexplored system. If you give it orders to go to a sector that you have not explored, and you don't explore it by warping in before it tries to execute the move to order, it will ignore you.

Also, you could find yourself halfway though a system with no other warp points out and have to burn fuel and time getting back, or I guess if you timed it right you could hit a black hole this way, but hey, that's what exploring is all about right?

I agree that ancient race is very valuable in getting a running start in games. For a time I used it in all my multiplayer games. But recently I have have found that I can usually survive past the point where it serves me any purpose, and then I end up wishing I had the 1000 points in maint reduction or something else that is useful for the whole game.

Plus as someone else said, it's more fun to wonder where everybody is. But that's just a personal opinion.

I guess if my life depended on me winning a game of Space Empires IV and I needed to make absolutly sure I did everything I could do to win, I would probably pick Ancient race. But that's mainly because I am better anyway in the early part of the game. I often get bored, or have trouble keeping track of everything in the later part of the game, so I would want to make sure I won as quickly as possible.

But I don't think it's unbalanced. I think that the cost is just right considering the time depreciation of the trait.

Geoschmo

[ 29 January 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

capnq · #5 January 29th, 2002, 05:32 PM

quote:
They key is that homeworlds have all 3 attributes around 100%.

That seems to be assuming Average planets; I've played games where my Bad homeworld's stats were in the low 80s. You're also assuming all players' homeworlds the same size.

MegaTrain · #6 January 29th, 2002, 07:54 PM

quote:
Originally posted by capnq:
That seems to be assuming Average planets; I've played games where my Bad homeworld's stats were in the low 80s. You're also assuming all players' homeworlds the same size.

True, that's usually how I play my solo games, and the Online games I've played so far have all used that starting scenario. With different starting choices, I'm sure you could determine a pattern, perhaps all three attributes of ~85% for poor, ~100% for average, and ~115% for good (just guessing, i'd have to play some practice games and see what patterns emerged--but I'm sure it's not that difficult to decipher).

What happens if you allow homeworlds to be different sizes? Will one race have an advantage with larger homeworlds? Or will it only start with odd sizes if it can average the number of facilities over, say, 3 homeworlds?

Krakenup · #7 January 29th, 2002, 08:19 PM

quote:
Originally posted by MegaTrain:
What happens if you allow homeworlds to be different sizes? Will one race have an advantage with larger homeworlds?

Yep. I've played games where I had a large homeworld and everyone else had mediums, and where I had a medium homeworld and the Aquilaeians had a huge homeworld. That was a tough game!