NGC5 starting now. (or "I wanna be a God aswell!")(Nearly Gods - the Conflict)

[AMF]

Let's ee what happens when I get squashed 5 turns into the game...

EDIT: because I may be many things, but I am NOT a ship or resource optimizer. I came to terms with this a long time ago...

See my thoughts below on this topic...

Originally posted by alarikf:
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I was thinking about a similar topic recently, and how it related to 4X games in general and SEIVG and SEV in particular.

here goes (and forgive me for being verbose, I'm on my fifth pilsner Urquell and I tend to get stupid when drinking and writing at the same time):


I play SEIV and similar games for many reasons, but, above all, I have found that I enjoy the *politics* of these games. In particular, to put it in gaming terms, I find it fascinating to observe and participate in the interactions of unequal powers dealing with each other and their own goals...

The political world is not fair, nor is it equal. And yet, the "lesser" powers in any given unequal relationship can often influence the greater powers far beyond their inherent capacity. Witness the leverage Cuba had over the USSR during the COld War.

I remember, I used to play a PBM before computer gaming, and the backdrop was exactly the same as SEIV..EXCEPT there was a really big power next door to all of us that had mhigher tech yet was "sluggish" and rarely got involved in our affairs as we built up our empires and fought each other..

And, then, look at MOO2 - a great game (lets' be honest now) and one of the reasons it was challengeing, at least the first few times, was becuase the Orions always held the upper hand. You nevber knew when they were gonna sweep down on you.

And, now, I've started a game (zeta quadrant) in which I wanted a similar dynamic - one powerful race, against which all players must fight (as well as each other) to attain the victory conditions. Problem is...it's hard to make a single power much more powerful than the players in SEIVG.

The idea I am trying to convince you of is this: in SE V, it would be nice if you could set up empires that were unequal and/or had pre-controlled regions, planets, fleets, etc...

For example, do you remember the game Traveller? Remember the war game Spinward Marches in which the setting was a powerful Zhodani empire in close proximity to a bunch of small unorganized human empires and the Imperium? Or the game where it was energetic humans on earth (solomani) making contact with the pre-existing but corrupt and inefficient first Imperiumn empire?

It would be nice, great, to be able to model those situations.

But, to do so would require SEV allow setups that were, first off, unequal in characteristics and, second, pre-set in terms of planets, fleets, etc...

The possibilities for such a set up are pretty limitless if it is made moddable.

I mean, there are an amazing amount of space stories out there that start in the middle of their storylines that we could model if we could, at the start of a game, set an empire to whatever we wanted and then run it from there...

Think of it: not only could you have a Star Trek Mod, but you could have a Star Trek on the eve of the Dominion War, or The Star Wars Empire v. the Rebellion right after the Return of the Jedi movie, or anything...

OK, I'm now, officially, babbling. I should go post this in the SEV requests forum I guess....

thanks,

Alarik

quote:

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Originally posted by Ruatha:
There are some games popping up with one God player, i e Zeta Quadrant, Masters of Orion 4...

I was thinking that it might be fun playing god.

So I'm making a map for 3-5 players, each playing an ancient race with a lot of tech directly and powerful starting conditions.
The rest 15-70 races are younger Ai races, weak.

Your job should be to influence these younger races to join your fraction, fight the other god's younger races. (Think Vorlons-shadows).

You aren't allowed to fight any younger races yourself, only other gods.
You aren't allowed to colonize outside your starting system (Good Sphereworld and several good planets for spaceyards in homesystem).
You'll get the entire tech tree for free, the younger races has to research (You'll get it by massive ancient ruins in the homesystem (several hundred tech levels each))
All trade and gifts will be disabled.

Win condition:
All other gods are dead, or all remaining younger races are on your side, meaning atleast military alliance or partnership.


Ideas, pitfalls??

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[ March 01, 2004, 02:58: Message edited by: alarikf ]

[Ruatha]

Ideas on human players
5000 raceial points
Home system with plenty of variating planets, all breathable and right type.
Starting planet a spehreworld.
Get's all tech through artifacts on turn 2-3.

How to control that the gods don't squash the subjects, don't know, I gotta trust you I guess.
Some battles will happen by mistake, that we'll have to accept.

Killing the stellar manip tree is ok, ancient isn't needed but you can take it if you want to.
Otherwise I'd suggest perhaps religious and temporal? But that's up to the Gods themselfs.
But research should be 50% as it isn't needed.

[se5a]

can you put a system grav shield onto a plannet before the games starts?
or you could have 10 warp points in the system that the "gods" start in.

disabiling warp opners would kind of suck,
you could of corse make that a tech that is not included in the ruins so it has to be reserched....

count me in on this game! I dont mind being a minor race (we could do it with humans rather than AI couldent we???)

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by se5a:
can you put a system grav shield onto a plannet before the games starts?
or you could have 10 warp points in the system that the "gods" start in.

disabiling warp opners would kind of suck,
you could of corse make that a tech that is not included in the ruins so it has to be reserched....

count me in on this game! I dont mind being a minor race (we could do it with humans rather than AI couldent we???)

Sure, human worshippers are better!


Originally I thought of making the Gods start in systems without wormholes.
I can't choose that Stellar manip won't come from ruins, apart from unique tech the tech gained from ruins is randomized when you colonize that planet.
A system shield can't be added before start.
10 worm-holes just gives the opponent a better clue as to where the opponent is.
I think No-ancient and normal map for all is best.
Then you don't know the whereabouts of the opponent Gods.
You're just really powerful races, not allknowingly.

[Alneyan]

The main problem with Warp Openers would be the ease to reach the opponents, bypassing the lesser powers and heading straight for their world. The System Shields Facility will not work either, as it would still be possible to open the wormhole to the system next to your opponent. (Obviously, without the Ancient trait you will need to do some scouting to spot where they lie)

On the other hand, it would make going to the offensive much harder, and how could you do so if other lesser powers could attack you on the way? You might want to instead add a rule along the lines of "you cannot *attack* the lesser powers, but defence is perfectly fine as long as they are the ones on the offensive". (No, the best defence isn't a good offence in this case) I will confess I am not sure how it should work to put the emphasis on these lesser powers.

[Intimidator]

I thought of it again
The fun part WITH the warp openers could be the fact that you ALL start with them.
So not only one race but 5, so you could go on the offensive in an other system, but never leave your own without defense because ever f*cking turn an complete armade could be marching in.

So you build defenses in your homesystem and build smaller/faster and cloaked ships to look around and find the youngers,


Yes this might be fun.....

I already join on pbw?

Intimidator

[Ruatha]

Ok, As I've made the map I can't be a god.
But i want to play.
So here is the current configuration I'm thinking of:
4 Ancients, 5000 racial points, übersystem with sphereworld as starting planet, ruins with all tech, 2 ringworlds, plenty of planets.
All adjusted to the players planet type and atmosphere.
15 normal races, 0 racial points, normal start.
1 First race, in center of galaxy, more racial points and better system than the ancients, no worm holes connecting to rest of galaxy.


Rules:
1. Ancients (4) cannot attack eachothers homesystem (or enter it) before turn 80 (Build, build , build).
2. No gifts or trades whatever.
3. Ancients cannot attack minor races before turn 120, only defend.
4. all racial traits are allowed, even the ancient allknowing one.

5. Minor races may attack whomever they want to.
6. Minor races may enter treaties with all other races, how they wish.
7, disregarding rule 6, human played minor races may only have military alliance or partnership with one ancient race at a time.
8. Ancient allknowing racial trait isn't allowed for aminor race.

9. First race (1) may not attack anyone or leave their homesystem unless:
10. The first race is used for police actions in case of violation of the above rules.


What does this mean?
For the minor races a T&R treaty with an ancient race boosts research mucho, unless that ancient race has dismantled all their (for themself useless) reaserch facilities.

The game host will check in on the other races from time to time and if an ancient is attacking a minor the first ones will strike back with a directed attack, either against that ancient race or one of its innocent minor races (Anyone with military or partnership treaty).

Any ancient might attack the first one if they wish at any time, to give me some fun.
The price is a really good oxygen rock system, but it will be hard to get and you'll loose every ship you send in and never win the battle, cause I'm the First One!

Before turn 80 the ancient ones will guide and coordinate their minor races in their war against the others minor races, and try to rally more minor races to their cause.
After turn 80 they may attack another ancient race but not a minor race.
After turn 120 it's all out war, then the minors should be up to tech.


The win will be collective and equal for all in the winning team, one ancient race and it's minor races.
The First one cannot win.
This means that there might from 1-16 winners in this game (One ancient and all minors).

The game will be called "(Nearly Gods) the Conflict 5" or NGC5, can soon be found on PBW under the heading (NG)C5.

Nothing is written in stone, themap isn't created.

More opinions and ideas?

[ March 01, 2004, 19:19: Message edited by: Ruatha ]