Ring and Sphereworlds

[LintMan]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kagetora:
Lintman you are not twice as old as me unless you happen to be 80. In any event exploits like this could hurt in a multiplayer situation. If I don't know about such an exploit and by using intelligence or ships I discover the ringworld being built and I plan an assault against it based on the time is should take to build it and some exploit makes my plans wrong. I could lose whole assault fleets attacking. Just because it is very expensive doesn't mean somebody won't do it and as all exploits do they will aid the foolish in beating those that are clever. You can't make proper strategy unless things are both consistant and known by you.

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Heh - fortunately I'm not 80 years old! (I was just guessing based on the average age of gamers I see on the net).

To clarify: my point about the ringworld speedup being extra expensive was that in a close game all those resources and production capacity you might use to build that ringworld would instead be better used to build an incredibly massive fleet that would annihilate your enemy. As they are now, ringworlds and sphereworlds seem to be in almost all cases, completely impractical to ever build, unless victory is assured and you just want to build them for the heck of it. Speeding up their construction just doesn't seem like it would ever matter in a real game.

I really do sympathize with your concerns about multiplayer cheats. I play an Online FPS called TFC where you play on public servers and have little control over who you play with, and cheating is a major concern there as well.

At one point, there was discovered a method in TFC to do a "quickdet" which gave certain players an advantage. It was mostly unknown for a very long time, (with the developer not reacting to reports of the method), but some players had discovered and used it from the beginning, while others were completely unaware and so were at a big disadvantage. Then the method was exposed, and the community was able to debate on it and was pretty split. About half thought it was fair, and about half thought it was an abuse. (In the quickdet case there are valid arguments for both sides).

While quickdet went into widespread use after that, at least everyone was on level ground that everyone knew about it, and people knew what to look for if someone was using it. That let the assorted leagues rule on its legality (most leagues allowed it) but allowed other leagues and servers to disallow and sanction those that used it there. (Eventually the developers issued a patch that removed the quickdet ability, deciding the issue for good.)

Anyway, my point is that with widespread knowledge of the quickdet method, players could then adjust their play to expect it, or could seek out players and leagues that rejected it.

Above, you say "You can't make proper strategy unless things are both consistant and known by you.". I totally agree, which is why I think exposure of these abuses is better. I'd rather know about a possible abuse that could be used against me, and so be able to look for it/prepare against it, than be surprised by it by a player who got it off some "cheats" web site.

Blah blah blah - enough yapping from me!

[dmm]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kagetora:
The limits in the game now are arbitrary but necessary for playability. If you can build alot in one place it benefits you more to have a few good planets than alot and makes expansion less necessary.

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I hear what you're saying, but my suggested scheme wouldn't allow you to build a lot in one place unless you also had a ton of population. The way things are now, an airless moon is almost as "powerful" as a homeworld, in terms of building fleets. That takes away a lot of the strategic importance of homeworlds, and of population-building techs. Also, the way things are now, two airless moons with 10M pop are better for rapid expansion/conquest than a single huge planet with breathable atmosphere and 8B pop. At this point, expansion isn't just important, it is the ONLY important thing, and there's not much strategy to it. One planet's as good as another, if you're only after a forward construction base. But that's bogus. Life on an airless, poorly-populated moon should be HARD, and progress should be SLOW. Planets capable of supporting large pops should be jewels worth going to war over.

[Nyx]

Dmm, Perhaps adding production penalties for colonies with populations below 100M, and more severely limiting the populations of domed colonies would solve the problem? If a domed colony could only hold 1/10 of an outdoor colony, instead of 1/5, a tiny world could only support 10M people. Any reasonable scheme of penalties would be harsh at a pop level of 10M if it took 100M to be 100%. Also, adding a conditions level of Deadly, that only occurs on worlds without your native atmosphere type should help some.

The 1/10 probably isn't balanced right, but the idea itself should be sound.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[This message has been edited by Nyx (edited 03 January 2001).]

[Kagetora]

Lintman, Yes I have had some experience with such things I played Heroes of might and magic 3 Online for a short time but there was an exploit that you could obtain hordes of low level creatures rather cheaply and thusly everybody wanted to only play that type character which ruined things and some people considered it a viable strategy because it was in the game even tho any idiot could easily realize it wasn't fair or otherwise they wouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I played a few games and everytime somebody showed up with a horde of gremlins I would just disconnect. However, this was a big waste of time and very unsatisfying. Anyway whether the exploit is good to know about or not depends alot on what the exploit is. It matters alot whether you are the type to make use of it yourself. I would use an exploit if I felt it was within the game design but just obscure knowledge. I would not if I felt it was totally contrary to the intent of the game. This is mostly something that bypasses an obvious limit in the game. It also might be a exploit in which I might not want to use it but feel obliged to in order to compete too. However, an exploit such as was posted here is none of those. I would not and could not base an attack on the faster production speed with a backup in case the person is playing properly. I would have to play and assume that the ringworld was being built properly and would just get burned if it wasn't whether I know about it or not.

[Kagetora]

dmm, I understand what you are saying and this game is quite different from most others in that regard. All games I have played before of this type have very few good planets and the same planets are good for everybody usually too. So you fight over them early and often. In this game not only can a planet that is great for your neighbor be worthless for you but you can with time make nearly any planet good. However, I have always felt that games of this type put too much emphasis on population. How many people on the earth would actually board a spaceship and go to another planet and face the dangers and start civilization from scratch with next to nothing. Not many, certainly not millions. If you have a shipyard and newport news has maybe 40,000 workers. Bath iron works has maybe 30,000. This isn't even granting the increase in automation and with this small number of population you can build as many ships as you want. It doesn't take alot. The way this game is setup for production is rather unusual. But I used to play games and if there wasn't a good planet in the direction of the enemy that basically caved that front in. At least here you can always put up a fight regardless of the map.

[JeffG]

As an aside, the Heroes of Might and Magic III exploit was eventually eliminated by the developers.

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Cheers!
Jeff George

[Harkonis]

As far as only being able to come up with a strategy if everything is constant.. that's what adaptation is for. This technique is abusive, definitely, but it is also so prohibitive that it shouldn't happen often at all (which gives you at least some sort of idea on the possibility if you were debating attacking). And if you did attack, and all of a sudden the planet was completed? Well, this is the type of surprise decoy military strategists have been fighting for decades.

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Harkonis HellRazor