Zeta 2 game starting!

[AMF]

A new SEIV Gold PBW game has just been created. I wanted to make all those who are in this game aware of it, in case you were looking for another game to join. I?m going to be the host. Information and backstory are below, and the game is located at the ?Zeta Quadrant? game on PBW (seiv.pbw.cc)

Thanks,

Alarik



Zeta Quadrant Game

The genesis of this game was the ?Galactic Sterilisation Hypothesis? thread, where the topic (based on some astronomical observations) of periodic sterilisations of the Galaxy was bandied about. This PBW game is based on that premise.

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Backstory for Zeta Quadrant Game:

Your people expanded into your galaxy for over a hundred years, and created an interstellar empire. In that time, your archaeologists and scientists occasionally found ruins of some long extinct ancient and powerful civilization. Some of these sites dated from billions of years ago, some as ?recent? as a few hundred thousand years old. And some of the sites were guarded with Machine Entities left behind by the ancients, as protectors.

As your race expanded into the galaxy, your scientists made an alarming and incontrovertible discovery: the galaxy is doomed. Your space telescopes confirmed that giant black holes were forming at the center of your galaxy. These doomed your civilization, for just before their formation, these black holes released a huge shockwave of Gamma radiation that overwhelmed the galaxy in so much energy that no life in your empire escaped. Your scientists also discovered evidence that indicated that this has been occurring almost regularly every billion years or so.

But, it was clear that at least one race survived this tragedy in the past: the Ancients. Your scientists speculated that only through the creation of a giant sphereworld (to provide a safe haven behind millions of miles of dense armour shielding) could any race survive these periodic galactic sterilizations. That must be how the Ancients did it.

That became the Last best hope of your people: to find a Sphereworld of the Ancients in which you could obtain a haven inside to survive the radiation shockwave. And, over the years, as the shockwave approached, your space telescopes and instruments did detect, in a far off and isolated quadrant of the galaxy, readings that can only be indicative of just such a sphereworld.

A massive expedition was launched under your command, in which giant colony ships carried billions of your people to the distant Zeta quadrant. The trip took hundreds of years, as there were no warp points to the quadrant. But the survival of the race was your goal, and cryo chambers are wonderful things. Behind you, the advancing shockwave destroyed all those left behind. The Galaxy was laid waste and the shockwave continues to expand, and will soon encompass the Zeta Quadrant as well. Time is not your ally.

As your colony ships approached the Zeta Quadrant, your frozen crew members were awoken, and massive colonies were established to begin the detailed search for the Sphereworld and your race?s survival. The advancing shockwave from the core of the Galaxy will reach the Zeta Quadrant in about 45 years, lending a keen sense of urgency to your efforts.

The strange properties of the Zeta quadrant that prevented warp holes to connect to it, also tragically prevent your current deep space arrays from zeroing in on the exact location of the Sphereworld you seek. But, your ships? recording systems did notice a danger: you are not alone. Other races have come to the same conclusion and also arrived in the Zeta Quadrant. Furthermore, there is evidence that your arrival in the Zeta Quadrant has awoken some of the Ancient?s Machine Entities, doubtless to protect the Sphereworld.

The Zeta Quadrant, the Last remaining habitable portion of the Galaxy, will be sterilized in 50 years. The only ones who will survive will be those in the Sphereworld...which is somewhere in Zeta Quadrant.

Settings

Game ends on turn 500, unless there is an agreed upon end before that. The only winners (maximum of two empires) will be those living in the Sphereworld at that time. This Sphereworld is located somewhere in the map. There may or may not be other weird things going on in this map, for it is an anomalous section of the galaxy. Lastly, there is the Machine Entity Race. They are the product of seedings by the Ancients, left behind to grow and evolve and dedicated to protecting Ancient sites. Your scientists are familiar with previous discovered Version of the Machine Gaurdians, and so I will provide public details on them on the game site. The Machine Entities are the Protectors of the Sphereworld. This means that, while they will not enter the Sphereworld, they will do everything possible to defend it and destroy invaders. And they are gifted with knowledge of the Zeta Quadrant, unlike yourselves, who are all new to it.

House Rules

Communication should be limited to in-game methods to represent the difficulty inherent in communicating with aliens as well as to simulate time delays and their effect in coordination also.

Role Playing is not essential, but it is appreciated.

Game Settings: The peculiar characteristics of the Zeta Quadrant lead to the following settings:

· Only one partner at a time.
· No mines, fighters, or satellites (as the background energies and radiations make smaller craft such as these non-viable ? Drones are allowed, since they are essentially just guided ships and hence large enough to be shielded and made operational)
· No Ancient Race Characteristic (you?re all new here!) The ONLY semi-exception to this is the Machine Entities, which will have knowledge of the general layout of the map (although they may not have the formal ?ancient race? trait per se..this is because, I, the game host, will be playing these guys, since I want to play in this game, but I made the map, so I need to account for the fact that I will know the basic layout of the map)
· No Stellar Manipulation (the Zeta quadrant?s background energies and the effects of Ancient technologies prevent such technologies from having any effect)
· Starting tech: Medium, tech cost: high
· No surrender (Hey, the fate of your race is at stake!)
· No tech trades, but ship trading is allowed.
· Intel will be OFF (since this is a fight for the total survival of your race, your people are far too wary and patriotic to consider selling secrets or letting aliens sabotage their race)
· Map is Large, and Unique. Starting planets will be medium value.
· Max of 20 players.
· Turns will be Automatic every 52 hours
· Standard SEIV Gold (1.84)
· Races: 2000 points. (no Ancient Race trait allowed)

Game information
Owner: alarikf
Turn number: Not Started
Players/max: 1/20
Last turn:
Next turn:
Turn duration: 52 hours
Turn automation: Fully automatic turns (key)
SE4 Version: Stock v1.84 (Gold Patch 3

[ March 22, 2004, 13:15: Message edited by: alarikf ]

[Ruatha]

Map is Large, and Unique. Starting planets will be medium value.


Is it a standard Large map (how many systems does a standard large map have? 100 systems??) or a Huge 250 systems Map?

It will effect my empire construction.

[ February 19, 2004, 20:03: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[AMF]

"huge" I would say. I haven't counted them, but the base which I made it with was as "large" with data settings.txt "max number of systems" set to 255. It looks like it's over 200, but, again, I haven't counted. I could do that. I'll try and get to that tonight to give you a rough guesstimate at the very least.

thanks,

Alarik

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Map is Large, and Unique. Starting planets will be medium value.


Is it a standard Large map (how many systems does a standard large map have? 100 systems??) or a Huge 250 systems Map?

It will effect my empire construction.

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by alarikf:
"huge" I would say. I haven't counted them, but the base which I made it with was as "large" with data settings.txt "max number of systems" set to 255. It looks like it's over 200, but, again, I haven't counted. I could do that. I'll try and get to that tonight to give you a rough guesstimate at the very least.

thanks,

Alarik

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Map is Large, and Unique. Starting planets will be medium value.


Is it a standard Large map (how many systems does a standard large map have? 100 systems??) or a Huge 250 systems Map?

It will effect my empire construction.

---

Oh, no.
Please don't count them.
This answer is good enough for me, thanks.

[AMF]

We still need 8 more players...come on people!

[Sabin]

Would a rather amatuer player be welcome? I don't think my ability at playing Space Empires IV Gold is decent yet, and I am not sure if I can meet the expectations of the other players. Also, this may be my first attempt at a Play By Web game.

[Intimidator]

Maybe you are a amateur player? But now I saw your Space empires stories, I know you are at least a SERIOUS player.

So if I got something to tell about it (which I've got NOT) I would say you are in, but as I said Alarikf is the boss not me.........

Intimidator,

[AMF]

Absolutely! I suspect there are few players in the game who would call themselves "expert" ...and I call myself an Amateur, so, please, jump right in!

I'm waiting...

Alarik

Originally posted by Sabin:
Would a rather amatuer player be welcome? I don't think my ability at playing Space Empires IV Gold is decent yet, and I am not sure if I can meet the expectations of the other players. Also, this may be my first attempt at a Play By Web game.

[AMF]

"boss"? Me? Huh? I'm not a "boss" I'm just a dude with an idea for a PBW SEIV game, that I decided to throw out there and host. And, frankly, I don;t expect to Last too long as "the machines," for a variety of reasons, one primary one is that I positively SUCK at optimizing ships or production...so, really, I am just gonna be the host...ugh...just realized I'm babbling...thats what I get for mixing wine and SEIV...

thanks,

Alarik

Originally posted by Intimidator:
Maybe you are a amateur player? But now I saw your Space empires stories, I know you are at least a SERIOUS player.

So if I got something to tell about it (which I've got NOT) I would say you are in, but as I said Alarikf is the boss not me.........

Intimidator,

[AMF]

Oh, but there is also one "gamey" thing that I want to disallow unless there is a great outcry:

"No multi moon training"!

I JUST heard about this a few weeks ago, and I think it is pretty gamey. As far as I understand it, it is the practice of playing many ships training facilities in a single sector, using moons and planets as the locations of the training facs. This has the practical effect of rapidly training ships in the sector, right? Much more rapidly than would otherwise (and realistically, IMHO) be possible....so, I';d like to disallow that for the Zeta quadrant game.

Comments?

thanks,

Alarik