Fundamentals and Gamey

[couslee]

still a newbie, but I can understand your frustration. I wouldn't call it gamey or cheating, but a limited competition. In explaination..
I like race designs that have an unmatched construction ability. I have worked on one for SP that is quite impressive, and I have done it without using the temporal race ability. If I add that, it will be even more awsome. However, I have to take defiencies in other areas. That is part of the balance of it.

I know you can find out what bonus abilities a ship has, and what race abilities a race has by looking in the right spot. If a frontal assualt has proved difficult at best, perhaps you should concentrate on their weaknesses. If they chose to have reduced happiness to make that 130% A&D, then make a bunch of kamikaze radiation bombers, heavy on the armor. Every strength of that magnitude, has an equal weakness somewhere. you just have to learn to exploit those. If a race has undefeatable ships, then attack other parts of the empire. Kinda hard to support those ships with no frigging minerals.
I have other ideas on how to deal with ubercombat but I am not going to tip my hand just yet.

Edit in: I got blitzed with IM Messages and lost my train of thought here.
What I mean by a "limited game" is things like a super-construction race is probably useless. So the challange is limited to developing a race that can deal with kill or be killed strategies and settings.

[ February 01, 2003, 16:09: Message edited by: couslee ]

[Taera]

Hey, how about if I like to role-play a highly combat effective and aggressive race? Ever think about that?

Yes i do. Its fine for me, as long as it doesnt become standard for PBW in all but "this is an RP game" games, which dont seem to be that common excluding big invintation games and such.

Couslee: i disagree. race with the settings:

50%, 120%, 100%, 52%, 125%, 110%, 125%, 110%, 125%, 125%, 50%, 115%, 80%, 102%, 120%, 50%, 105%

would be quite difficult to be caught by their weaknesses -- namely the low ground combat, they can simply load their more important planets with WP's that will always hit you. There is realy little one can do with such a race, without taking similar stats.

(designed with 3k and 120% intilligence)

[Phoenix-D]

"What I mean by a "limited game" is things like a super-construction race is probably useless."

It's not, really. You just have to A. be prepared the accept massive losses and B. make sure you have a LOT of ships, preferably more advanced than your opponent's. Playing defensive with this strategy doesn't work..they get bigger than you and use the size of their empire to out-produce you despite your better per-yard construction.

Phoenix-D

[capnq]

I also kind if curious how everyone seems to know what everyones stats are in the KOTH???

When you make contact with a race, in the Empires (F9) screen, right-click the race portrait, or left-click to send a message, then press the Report button. This brings up the same report for that race that the "Our Race" button does for your own. The third tab has a summary of the race's characteristics and advanced traits. The characteristics have descriptive words rather than exact percentages, but each word has a fixed range of percentages. (You can see the words change when you're setting your characteristics while creating the race at the beginning of the game.)

[Fyron]

You can also right click on their race flag displayed on the info section of the main screen when veiwing any of their ships, planets, etc.

[DavidG]

Actaully I didn't mean my oponents stats (I know how to do that ). I meant everyones . Clearly everyone is not taking 20/20 beserker. Me for example.

[Fyron]

People have been making assumptions.

[geoschmo]

Players in all sorts of games will of course attempt to min/max as much as they can. But a few things will limit this from becoming some sort of "standard".

First of all, there are a lot of settings. Most everybody that understands how combat in SEIV works will agree that high aggressivness and defensivness are important for success, and poor numbers in either or both of these is a recipie for failure. But that is only two of 15 characteristics, and then you have all the advanced traits to choose from.

Even if everybody chose chose 125/125/berzerker, that doesn't exactly mean that race choices have suddenly become "one dimensional". That combination takes 3000 racial points. So there is plenty of room for diversity. In a 2000 point game you'd have to get 1000 points from somewhere? But where do you get them? Are your choices better than the other guys? In a 5000 point game you still have 2000 points to spend. But on what? Thats where the differences come in to play.

But chances are it's not going to get to that extreme. A wise player will try to throw some points in those categories, but does he need 125 in each? Would it be sufficent to get 110 in each and bezerker and spend those racial points in some other areas? Or maybe someone will take 120 in one and leave the other at 100?

Yes, a player that takes 75/75/merchant is going to have really hard time dealing with a 125/125/bezerker one on one. But would a 110/110/merchant? Could his concentration in economics make up the difference? Possibly, if he is a skilled player.

Also, keep in mind that a player that is 125/125/bezerker is going to have a big target on his chest in the early game. A smart player is constantly sizing up opponents in the game to decide who would be wise to leave around until the end. If you were faced with a choice between a 100/100 merchant and a 125/125/bezerker as neighbors, wouldn't you tend to team up with the merchant and go after the bezerker very early on? And you'd look for other allies to join in the fight. The same sort of principle is what limits the religious races from becoming totally dominant in the game.

I am not suprised someone has equated fundamentals with gaminess. But that's not specific to SEIV. Fundamentals get a bad rap in sports even. How many pro basketball players are great free throw shooters? How much respect do the kickers get in football? And how many baseball fans go to games to watch good defense? But those things are what all good teams do reasonably well, and all great teams do very well. They are what separates the teams with lots of talent from the teams that win championships.

Geschmo

[Taera]

geo, my major point is MIN/maxing. i know what you are saying, but then again - something that requies early kill, special strategies, banding together isnt too good. at all.

[couslee]

Banding together? I thought KOTH was one on one with no AIs.

Other PBW games are of course a different story, I guess.