Space Empires IV Gold Game

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-04 12:00pm

We have rules about subjugation, but what about protectorates? Can a protectorate break the treaty at any time and then launch a sneak attack, or does there have to be some advance warning?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-04 12:20pm

Hm that is good question. Plus there's many fine details. Like when can you break out of subjugation if an enemy fleet arrives in your home system, are you forced to defend to the death and why not. Okay to make it simple there will be a negotiation on the level of autonomy. Depending on how autonomous your protectorate is, it takes shorter and shorter time to break the treaty. The level of autonomy is negotiated through pms or in game or through RP before the treaty starts.

Equal Partners - 0 months to break a protectorate.
Weapons Inspectors - 5 months to break a protectorate.
Military Enforcement (no-fly zones, military patrols) - 7 months to break a protectorate.
Military Occupation (troops) - 9 months to break a protectorate.
Puppet Government - 12 months to break a protectorate.

The whole question of "sneak attacks" is a nasty question. Do I want to form a protectorate with someone who will sneak attack me and cripple me? Then there's the whole question of when the protected state decides to cede, whether the more powerful state will just build up a huge fleet on its borders and move in to take it over as soon as the deadline is up. I would rather not introduce a rule mechanic, but the alternative is that everybody dies and this becomes a two-horse race so we have to make some kind of specific rules.

I suggest honor system. If the protectorate begins on Stardate 2400.0 and you have agreed to have your entire government replaced (puppet government) the earliest you can break this treaty is 2400.9. The honor system is that when the protectorate declares it wants to break the treaty, it's through RP and clandestine. Depending on the proficiency of your intelligence services and the personality of your leader, he may or may not notice the covert operations in time to deploy some kind of response. Also depending on the RP of the kind of rebellion. It will have to be case by case worked out through RP.

<edit>Okay, since when you form a protectorate or are subjugated you have by game mechanics lost the game, it is underhanded to use this keep alive rule which is intended for RP because you purely plan to sneak attack someone. So if you go into a protectorate with a higher status than equal partners, or if you surrender and are subjugated, if you want to get out under the hand of your master, you have to RP. I know I said that nobody has to RP if they don't want to, but game mechanics-wise you are already dead and the only reason you want to stay alive is for RP. So if you go under protectorate, in addition to the time limit you need to make a number of posts outlining the formation of your resistance movement. 9 months, 9 posts. Depending on the master empire's intelligence and leader personality he might notice at post 5 or not notice your actions at all. You'll need to co-ordinate this RP with your master empire, but planning to put a fleet in orbit of his homeplanet then attack him is not the reason for these extraneous rules, it's supposed to keep the RP alive. Unless, you and your master empire plan to have some kind of trojan horse or strange form of RP.</edit>

<edit 2>I changed the times because 3 turns is really too little.</edit 2>

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-04 12:42pm

The reason I ask is that I just can't see Kirk subjugating another race that he was not in a brutal war with, but he might offer a fairly strict protectorate (say, 9 turns advance notice to break), given the current state of relative hostility with the Dominion.

It seems to me that the difference between subjugation and protectorate is that if you're subjugated, you've basically lost, like you said, but in a protectorate you can still come back from the brink.

In any case, those rules sound good to me.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-04 01:01pm

In character (IC) Kirk wouldn't be aware of "nine months until the Vorta can kick our ass" but it would be more like "okay Dominion I'm going to put weapons inspectors and representatives on all of your cities along with some security" or something along those lines. Nine months is out-of-character rule kind of like how you need to roll over an opponent's armor class to defeat him but obviously RPing your character isn't aware of AC or hit dice or attack bonus.

For subjugation the only way you can come out is if you do a lot of RP and have another empire bring a liberation fleet over and free your homeplanets a la France by the Allies WWII. For liberation from the Borg it would be massive ships coming into orbit to deassimilate billions of people, a huge undertaking.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-04 02:54pm

The treaty that I offered in the RP thread constitutes a 7-turn protectorate.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-12-04 09:45pm

About ready to upload the new map. Just one question...

Trogdor: Which systems do you claim as part of your territory? According to the scores you have six systems.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-04 10:11pm

All the uncontested sectors marked as mine are mine. Of the contested ones, only the one part of that square by the corner is also mine. It borders Starfleet command's territory and is on the old map but not marked as mine.

What the hell is wrong with the retrofit function? Anybody else having it do seemingly nothing when you tried it?

Edit: never mind, I figured it out.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-12-04 10:29pm

Great. Map updated. Let me know if there are any errors.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-04 10:37pm

...unless I've much mistaken, that's the old map.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-12-04 10:54pm

Trogdor wrote:...unless I've much mistaken, that's the old map.

Refresh the image, Romulan.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-04 11:11pm

This is why I'm a praetor and not a programmer.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-05 12:39am

Trogdor wrote:All the uncontested sectors marked as mine are mine. Of the contested ones, only the one part of that square by the corner is also mine. It borders Starfleet command's territory and is on the old map but not marked as mine.

What the hell is wrong with the retrofit function? Anybody else having it do seemingly nothing when you tried it?

Edit: never mind, I figured it out.

I haven't figured it out. What did you do to fix it?

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-12-05 12:42am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:I haven't figured it out. What did you do to fix it?

Like everything else, Retrofitting happens during turn execution. When you order a retrofit for a ship, click on "View Orders".

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-05 01:44am

When I did it, I still had the same old ships the next turn.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-12-05 01:49am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:When I did it, I still had the same old ships the next turn.

Are you sure? That didn't happen to me. Is it at a planet with a shipyard?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-05 01:50am

You can only retrofit up to 150% of the total cost. Add up the mins, orgs and rad cost of your base ship and multiply it by 1.5. Your new ship total mins+orgs+rads must be less than or equal to this.

Retrofitting is also expensive. 300% I believe. Retroseries, building a lot of base ships and upgrading the hulls with many repair ships is normally used to get ships out very fast. Also keeping a SYS with your fleet lets you retrofit yoru entire fleet, and since every ship can have 2 damage controls retrofitting your entire fleet to a new weapons system like from torpedoes to missiles is not outside possibility if you have a lot of resources stockpiled.

<edit>Oh yeah, the order of components matter. Let's say that your new ship has its components in all different slots. The new ship will be a brand new ship since every component needs to be repaired. For example if your ships is B + CQ + ... and your new design is PT + B + CQ + ..., your new ship will be a totally different ship and probably the retrofit won't work. And if you retrofit engines or supply modules, beware. The engines/supply modules will have their supplies jettisoned and the next turn your ship will be out of supplies unless there's a resupply depot.</edit>

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-05 01:55am

I'm familiar with those strategies, although I consider retroseries cheating and don't use it. I'll try retrofitting again and see if it works this time. Maybe it just doesn't work on colony ships.

EDIT: Come to think of it, the components might have been in a different order. That could have caused it.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-05 01:59am

Retroseries won't be so gamey this time around. I can build a fully equipped battleship in four or five turns in my temporal space yards. Retroseries would only speed this up by one turn, and it would cost much more. Unless your empire has the resources to spare retroseries is too expensive, and if you're willing to emergency build you can keep up just as well. I always have more shipyards than I can build ships in, keeping a few on emergency build cycling in and out.

Brian

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2005-12-05 02:12am

I've been building retroseries until I can get enough shipyards out. With all the limitations put on it, it's not so much gamey as it is lacking in decent user interface. With the limitations of spaceborne shipyards, I wouldn't normally bother, but I'm a little trapped here and I've got far more resources then I could ever possibly spend - and I haven't even upgraded my mining facilities yet! At least I'm starting to reach parity now. Also, retroseries was quite tempting because Tholians have racial repair tech available early.

And brian - are you already building battleships? Eeek! It'd take me over a turn's research just to get full-size cruisers still. That's why I haven't upgraded from LCs yet. I'll want slightly better anti-fighter/sat/drone weapons before I go for big ships. I just hope my research into shields and armor doesn't become entirely pointless by the time I actually get into combat with one of you, what with shield- and armor-skipping weapons.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-05 03:09am

I've been neglecting weapons and hull sizes, since I know nobody's going to be able to muslce their way their way past my ~1,300 fighters at this point in the game. Focused on facility and colonization tech, instead, among other things.

By the way, I discovered that carriers are useless. Shuttle bays count as cargo space, so you could build a medium transport that's exactly the same as a light carrier, the only difference being that the transport gets a -10% bonus to maintenance while the carrier suffers a +5% penalty. And large transports come through the normal course of researching ship construction, unlike the only-slightly-larger heavy carrier, which takes probably over a million extra research points into advanced construction, a field that doesn't really yield anything else worthwhile.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-05 03:29am

Thirteen hundred fighters is impressive, and they cost no maintainence and are equivalent to 130000 dollar fleet. It would take maybe 200000 worth of ships to muscle through it... maybe, 15-20 heavily equipped point defense ships, maybe more if you need to break through a warp point. I would say 2x as many for a warp point maybe 30 ships.

I don't get anything bigger than a shuttle II researching support craft. Advanced gives real shuttles up to V with small warp core, fighters become strategic rather than tactical.

I'm not making battleships yet and not telling whether I can make them :p. Although, you need at least cruiser to build bases on warp points, and I have cruiser at least.

And yes it's fucking 4:00 AM I'm watching Bruce Willis Tears of the Sun have a problem lol, okay back to it

.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-06 07:22pm

Alan Bolte wrote:"Sir, I'm afraid I have some bad news to report."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Several of our spacecraft have been having trouble with their propulsion booster modules."

"Yes, I read the reports."

"Well, we instructed the ships to rondezvous and attempt to repair each other rather than attempt to repair themselves. Unfortunately, this failed as well. We've analysed the situation and determined that that component can only be repaired at a planetary shipyard."

"Well, not so much lost, I suppose. Most of those were colony ships, after all."

I'm glad I wasn't the only one experiencing that. I wonder how they did it. It's a good fix, anyway, "emergency" propulsion that you constantly repair and use every turn is a crock.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-06 07:29pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:
Alan Bolte wrote:"Sir, I'm afraid I have some bad news to report."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Several of our spacecraft have been having trouble with their propulsion booster modules."

"Yes, I read the reports."

"Well, we instructed the ships to rondezvous and attempt to repair each other rather than attempt to repair themselves. Unfortunately, this failed as well. We've analysed the situation and determined that that component can only be repaired at a planetary shipyard."

"Well, not so much lost, I suppose. Most of those were colony ships, after all."
I'm glad I wasn't the only one experiencing that. I wonder how they did it. It's a good fix, anyway, "emergency" propulsion that you constantly repair and use every turn is a crock.

Agreed. It's a cheap way to get movement, and thankfully this mod's also limited the max emergency propulsion to 2 extra movement. If you need to sprint, you've got 2 squares. Which is a lot more in this mod than stock, as Warp Cores get so expensive to research...

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-06 07:46pm

What about Ship/Base Space Yards?

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-06 07:50pm

....the hell? AAUGH. A part of my fleet went through the Jump Point instead of my scout ship? *shakefist*. I hit cancel on that order, darnit!

Meanwhile, that obsolete scoutship is sitting on the friendly side of the hole. >< Can we uh... undo that?