Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?

[Alneyan]

If you so insist. I'm afraid at least one of us has lost more than a few marbles, though, and I certainly can't gork the current settings.

Since we are acting silly and will slash our respective intelligence scores, let's ban all training whatsoever. No ship training, and no fleet training either. What a relief!

I'm not sure I understand the point of your last turn. Care to elaborate, explain or otherwise expound on that peculiar setting?

[Slynky]

Alneyan said:

Since we are acting silly and will slash our respective intelligence scores, let's ban all training whatsoever. No ship training, and no fleet training either. What a relief!

I'm not sure I understand the point of your last turn. Care to elaborate, explain or otherwise expound on that peculiar setting?

Acting silly? Nay, I say. Interesting is the key word.

Why? Well, I hate games where people pour all their energy into making the biggest fleet, whomp the opponent, and the game is pretty much over. The way I see it, if you lose a fleet of 10 ships (and you have 70 ships), it's quite different from losing all 70 ships in one deciding battle. Secondly, having a fleet limit of 10 ships makes platforms a possible alternative (as it's quite a joke to have 10 platforms try to hold off 50 ships).

So, that's my thinking.

BUT, it got complicated with your submittal of no training. With training, I figured it didn't matter if someone entered a warppoint defended by a fleet of 10 ships, 10 bases, and 100 fighters because bases wouldn't be able to hit much and same goes for fighters (though not as bad). NOW, bases would be quite viable and a limit of 10 ships in a fleet would make it impossible to get by a warppoint defended as I mentioned above. Also, there doesn't seem to be any setting to turn training off unless one turned off Advanced Military Science (gulp!). And, having training turned off would raise the aroma of Religious trait quite a bit.

Though I hate the boring training sessions as well, do you want to re-think that last option?

Fulltech:

No intel
No APB
No ship/base size above 600 Kt
No racial points
No fleet of ships can exceed 10 ships (explain later if questions)

5 down, 5 to go:

[Alneyan]

Yeah, I didn't get the gist of your rule the first time around. I would suggest a rewording, on the lines of "no more than ten ships per sector at any given time". We might have to prepare for reloads, though: I can see some problems when trying to launch multiple attacks at a position in the same turn (I'd want to initiate several attacks in the same round against a wormhole, myself). Given how complicated move orders are, such plans could result in getting more than ten ships in a battle.

Turning off Advanced Military Science is not a problem. The trait only gives training facilities and sensors, but the latter is utterly useless in a full tech game. Hyperoptic Sensors are "only" good because they aren't too hard to research, but Gravitational Sensors will work just as well here. If you are feeling silly, just use the more expensive Tachyon Sensors.

So, turning off training shouldn't be a problem, in technical terms. Now we should decide whether it's a wise thing. I'm not sure training is that useful, as getting through a wormhole is going to be tough no matter what, with only ten ships around against a mighty number of units on the other side (plus ten ships). There's always Warp Manipulation, of course, but then training doesn't matter one bit.

So, I'll make the following bold suggestion over the "no training" thing. There may only be one hull deployed (a ship, a base or one unit) over a wormhole at any one time. Planets over a wormhole cannot have any extra cargo. How does that sound?

[Slynky]

Alneyan said:
Yeah, I didn't get the gist of your rule the first time around. I would suggest a rewording, on the lines of "no more than ten ships per sector at any given time". We might have to prepare for reloads, though: I can see some problems when trying to launch multiple attacks at a position in the same turn (I'd want to initiate several attacks in the same round against a wormhole, myself). Given how complicated move orders are, such plans could result in getting more than ten ships in a battle.

Turning off Advanced Military Science is not a problem. The trait only gives training facilities and sensors, but the latter is utterly useless in a full tech game. Hyperoptic Sensors are "only" good because they aren't too hard to research, but Gravitational Sensors will work just as well here. If you are feeling silly, just use the more expensive Tachyon Sensors.

So, turning off training shouldn't be a problem, in technical terms. Now we should decide whether it's a wise thing. I'm not sure training is that useful, as getting through a wormhole is going to be tough no matter what, with only ten ships around against a mighty number of units on the other side (plus ten ships). There's always Warp Manipulation, of course, but then training doesn't matter one bit.

So, I'll make the following bold suggestion over the "no training" thing. There may only be one hull deployed (a ship, a base or one unit) over a wormhole at any one time. Planets over a wormhole cannot have any extra cargo. How does that sound?

OK, how about this mod to the mod:

No more than 10 items at a warphole. Examples: 1 fighter, 1 sat, 2 bases, and 6 ships. Or, 10 fighters. Or 10 sats. Or 10 bases. Or 5 bases and 5 ships. (you get the idea) Wouldn't be any worse trying to come through a hole and letting 70 ships have first shot at you to go against a max of 10 things with a fleet of 10 ships. OF course, the dilemma is complicated by the possibility of bases or ships that launch fighters. Granted, anything sporting fighter bays doesn't have weapons. And might NOT get a chance to launch any/all of the fighters.

As to planets and warpholes together...don't worry. My last setting takes care of that:

Fulltech:

No intel (S)
No APB (A)
No ship/base size above 600 Kt (S)
No racial points (A)
No more than 10 vessels per sector (mines exempt) (S)
No Advanced Military tech (A)
No openers or closers (S)

[Alneyan]

Well, let's see:

- Should we agree on some sort of procedure if one of the "no more than" rule is violated? I suspect it could also be a problem with, say, fleets that lose some movement after a battle.

- I'm fine with your modification to the modified modification (the rule of Ten Defenders).

- Looks like you didn't trust me to ban Warp Manipulation (like you would trust *me* with anything). So, I'll do something nice and simple: No Mines. You know, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" and all that.

I know I really want to yell "Manual placement", but. You're flying without the Balance Mod, so let's live on the edge. In case it gets ugly... well, I'll stay in France for eight months still, so that's plenty of time for a rematch.

- Do we have a volunteer for game setup and all the dull, boring, run-of-the-mill, commonplace administrative stuff? I guess either of us could do the setup, since we are doing a random map, and we are both respectable folks. Then again, I always screw up when setting up your games, so perhaps someone else should do it.

[Slynky]

Alneyan said:
Well, let's see:

- Should we agree on some sort of procedure if one of the "no more than" rule is violated? I suspect it could also be a problem with, say, fleets that lose some movement after a battle.

- I'm fine with your modification to the modified modification (the rule of Ten Defenders).

- Looks like you didn't trust me to ban Warp Manipulation (like you would trust *me* with anything). So, I'll do something nice and simple: No Mines. You know, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" and all that.

I know I really want to yell "Manual placement", but. You're flying without the Balance Mod, so let's live on the edge. In case it gets ugly... well, I'll stay in France for eight months still, so that's plenty of time for a rematch.

- Do we have a volunteer for game setup and all the dull, boring, run-of-the-mill, commonplace administrative stuff? I guess either of us could do the setup, since we are doing a random map, and we are both respectable folks. Then again, I always screw up when setting up your games, so perhaps someone else should do it.

Fulltech:

No intel (S)
No APB (A)
No ship/base size above 600 Kt (S)
No racial points (A)
No more than 10 vessels per sector (mines exempt) (S)
No Advanced Military tech (A)
No openers or closers (S)
No mines (A)

-------------------------------------------------

Well, we still need to agree on other things. For instance, I kind of like the horror of the grid map. Enjoyed a game on it with Khryon. But it's really scary. And how many starting planets? And what size? And what size galaxy?

As to a volunteer, we can wait a bit, I suspect, and see if anyone hops up to the plate. I'm just kind of busy at Christmas time and to add to it, I'm sponsoring a photo contest on an auto website and filling the last item for a wedding I shot last month (a ProSho slideshow...have been waiting for version 3 to come out which happened yesterday).

If no one else volunteers, I trust you to set up the game because I suspect you enjoy the challenge instead of a cheated win.

So, 8 months? Did I miss something somewhere?

[Alneyan]

As I understand it, map settings and the like should have been picked during the "pick a setting" phase, like your other zany proposals.

If you do want those settings, I guess I'm for three homeworlds (though that'll make contact quicker, it should reduce the random factor of starting positions), good quality, and I have no opinion whatsoever about maps (I'm not overly fond of your little "Wormholes closer to the centre of system" quirk, though).

That aside, I guess our game is ready to blast off. Well, except we'll both be busy for the next few days, and I still need to compute my Empire. And then my exams will come in crashing, but it shouldn't interfere much this year.

I've warned that I will have to bail out of SEIV in one of my last posts (on 29/11, 1847 UTC). I should be somewhere in the UK either as a student or a teacher in September, though the specifics aren't particularly clear yet. I'm currently writing a silly "write a letter telling us how good you are for the job" thing... I'd say it's boring as hell, but that would be disparaging. I've been told hell is actually a pretty swell place.

[Slynky]

Alneyan said:
As I understand it, map settings and the like should have been picked during the "pick a setting" phase, like your other zany proposals.

If you do want those settings, I guess I'm for three homeworlds (though that'll make contact quicker, it should reduce the random factor of starting positions), good quality, and I have no opinion whatsoever about maps (I'm not overly fond of your little "Wormholes closer to the centre of system" quirk, though).

That aside, I guess our game is ready to blast off. Well, except we'll both be busy for the next few days, and I still need to compute my Empire. And then my exams will come in crashing, but it shouldn't interfere much this year.

I've warned that I will have to bail out of SEIV in one of my last posts (on 29/11, 1847 UTC). I should be somewhere in the UK either as a student or a teacher in September, though the specifics aren't particularly clear yet. I'm currently writing a silly "write a letter telling us how good you are for the job" thing... I'd say it's boring as hell, but that would be disparaging. I've been told hell is actually a pretty swell place.

Actually, I was thinking the setting choices were for the "strange" items and that maps, etc., were a bit mundane.

So, we can forget the "Wormholes closer to the centre of system" thing you hate. (mental note: looks like Alneyan is already warming up to the English version of English)

So, did I hear (read) Balance mod? And no objection to a grid map? 3 good homeworlds? And if we get someone to set things up, do you think we should press for a nice manual placement?

And, in the OT arena, I must have missed the post concerning your future out of France. So, am I to guess you will be teaching French to the English?

PS: Work has blocked the forum and PBW. Grrrrr! So, I have to wait till I get home to post.

[Alneyan]

I swear I'm innocent, and didn't ask any of my contacts in GA to shut down your Internet access. Honest.

I wouldn't really mind the Balance mod here, as the game will be interesting enough anyway (in a regular game, I find that the Balance mod kills the one remaining part of novelty). Still, I'd much rather have more varied systems than in Balance mod. In full-tech, more systems should be directly useful, or at least not so bad (black holes are a speedbump, if that much).

So, perhaps it should be Balanced planets but with some extra systems... at least the pretty good ones (Binary/Trinary/Asteroids, and maybe Nebulaes too). I'm Neutral about the other settings, so I won't go off rioting.

I don't actually speak English, you know. What I use is eighteenth-century French with funny vowels, and a few thousand words ripped off from German. I've always used English English, not because I like them in Albion, but simply because it's closer to French. So much easier to always write "centre" instead of using "center" in English, or to stick "-ise" no matter what.

I'll be shipped out of France as either a language assistant or a lazy student, actually (might even be a lecturer in university, though that's pretty unlikely). The next stage in my studies involves research, though, and I'm having a hard time finding *one* project that could be even remotely interesting (doing research in humanities isn't exactly my cup of tea... I suppose it would have a wee bit more exciting in CS).

So (*), I'll almost certainly sneak through the border next year, though *how* exactly isn't particularly clear yet. I might also end up in Wales or Scotland, and not in that small piece of land known as England.

(* : Notice the use of "So" in every other sentence or so. I'm not sure where I picked up that annoying habit, though. I've heard a couple people put the "So-sayers" around Seattle, but I'm not going to discuss the various flavours of American accents. No, really.)

[Slynky]

Alneyan said:
I swear I'm innocent, and didn't ask any of my contacts in GA to shut down your Internet access. Honest.

I wouldn't really mind the Balance mod here, as the game will be interesting enough anyway (in a regular game, I find that the Balance mod kills the one remaining part of novelty). Still, I'd much rather have more varied systems than in Balance mod. In full-tech, more systems should be directly useful, or at least not so bad (black holes are a speedbump, if that much).

So, perhaps it should be Balanced planets but with some extra systems... at least the pretty good ones (Binary/Trinary/Asteroids, and maybe Nebulaes too). I'm Neutral about the other settings, so I won't go off rioting.

I don't actually speak English, you know. What I use is eighteenth-century French with funny vowels, and a few thousand words ripped off from German. I've always used English English, not because I like them in Albion, but simply because it's closer to French. So much easier to always write "centre" instead of using "center" in English, or to stick "-ise" no matter what.

I'll be shipped out of France as either a language assistant or a lazy student, actually (might even be a lecturer in university, though that's pretty unlikely). The next stage in my studies involves research, though, and I'm having a hard time finding *one* project that could be even remotely interesting (doing research in humanities isn't exactly my cup of tea... I suppose it would have a wee bit more exciting in CS).

So (*), I'll almost certainly sneak through the border next year, though *how* exactly isn't particularly clear yet. I might also end up in Wales or Scotland, and not in that small piece of land known as England.

(* : Notice the use of "So" in every other sentence or so. I'm not sure where I picked up that annoying habit, though. I've heard a couple people put the "So-sayers" around Seattle, but I'm not going to discuss the various flavours of American accents. No, really.)

Well, we can just play on a game-generated map for those "weird" systems you want, I guess. I'd hate to ask someone to go to that kind of trouble--making a Balanced Mod map and then modifying it.

But, you never responded to my other game suggestions.

As to language, "centre" might be as easy to type as, center, BUT, "colour" takes extra time over, color. As does, flavour (instead of flavor).

And then there are those other mind-numbing word they use like, queue (instead of the shorter, line). Or, rubbish bin instead of trash can. Or bonnet instead of hood.