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This thread is for talking about the new SEIV game Brian has created. The first order of business is to vote for what we want to see and such, and to see who's interested.

Personally, I vote we play Neph's mod, since that's over quickly. SEV has gone gold and will be out in less than a month, so we don't want to prolong it too much.

-What are the diff. mods for those of us who don't know and what are important features of each?

I've withdrawn from the SDN Mk2 game. Appreciate the invitation but I'm not so hot on SE4 these days (although I still want to see what happens in B5).

Something with Weapon Size mounts.

I'm sorry, but if I tech all the way up to Dreadnaughts, I want to mount five or so OMEGA CANNONS, not fifty of the same gun I was using on my escorts.

Mods of note, for Nova. Pros and Cons


B5:
+Really detailed ship productions, designs, GREAT racial differences
+Suitable for long RPed political games
-Hideous lack of polish, lots of useless items, work in construction
-Takes about the age of the universe plus one to finish.

ST:
+Balanced races, mostly the same though
+Has easy to manage homefront.
-Lots of playtime revealed all it's secrets
-Too easy to MinMax now.

Adamant:
+Strategic is important
+Good balanced infrastructure
+Super Complex!
-Super Complex!
-LONG to play!
-Too many techs?

Strange Empires in Infinate Space! (Mine):
+Fast! Ought to take less time than even STMod
+Funny! I think so at least.
=Weird. It uses colonization to get technology instead of research
-Untested!
-Rewards luck a lot sometimes!
-Infrastructure on planets and stuff is a bit really basic.

Pah! You just think the racial differences are "great" because you picked the best one

Seriously, though, I had a thought. You make a mod from scratch based on certain ideas (I would do my destroyer/cruiser/battleship paradigm) but you don't add any races or components. Then you make the races one by one with their ships and components. You make this manageable by using fewer techs. No more Blah Cannon I through X, but maybe just Blah Cannon, Advanced Blah Cannon, and Ultimate Blah Cannon. This way, each has has its own unique techs. By laying out formulas ahead of time based on the size of the weapons, strengths and weaknesses of each race, etc., balancing becomes ridiculously easy. In fact, balancing is almost unecessary since it's balanced by default. You can add races from Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, etc. If you want to have a ST game, you use only ST races. If you want a SW game, likewise. If you want a crossover, you can do that too.

-From what Neph's posted I don't think I'd like B5 or ST for the new game. I don't like half finished stuff and don't want to spend forever figuring out how to min/max a new race. I do like Adamant and don't mind the complexity, but we would need to figure a way to keep it shorter if SEV is out soon. Then again, is a game of only 25-50 turns worth the bother? The only way I'd enjoy it is if we started with high tech and lots of resources and infrastructure. Then again that is just a slugging match. Neph's mod sounds like it could be fun except for the part about have 0 control over your tech. advancement. I really hate games based primarily on luck since I'm pretty damn unlucky. Then again Neph does sport a VGcat's avatar which is a good omen that her mod would be fun one way or another (are there Ratflail components?).
-I'd like to address Brian's rule set. He has a lot of options covered, but oddly neglects gangbang rules. Personally, I think gang banging other players is far more onerous than most of the things listed combined. This is especially true in games with massive starting power that can't be matched by growth for several 10's of turns. An empire gang banged in such a game is pretty much toast unless the other players are incompetant. Therefore, I suggest a novel set of rules. No player may have more than two military alliances (a partnership counts as a mil. ally) and one partnership at any point in time. No player may start a war against another player if the player is already at war and is fighting an empire >1.2X its size. A player may attack as many empires as it likes so long as the previous rule is not broken. If the multiple empires that were attack gang up on the attacker so be it. If player1 has a partnered ally that is attacked player1 may attack the offending empire regardless of the previous restrictions on gang bangs.

Regarding Nova's suggestion about "gangbang" rules. It's true that two players versus one come out on top if everything else's even. So five or seven on one would be a slaughter, right?

The thing is I have faith in the "invisible hand." That is, unless two or three players make a deal before the game starts saying they'll kill everybody else first before turning on each other, there's no need for limiting the number of military alliances. If everybody is honorable and makes decisions based on in game reasons and not out of game reasons there's no reason why the invisible hand shouldn't work. And I have no doubt everybody plays fair.

Also because the rule seems unenforcable. What if three or four players attack one mega evil empire and that evil empire claims the rule was violated, but the two camps just happened to attack at the same time and aren't in cahoots? I don't want to get into rules lawyering at all. Nephtys' mod shouldn't need it. It'll be fast and sweet and if SE:V comes out on September 12th, it might be a good idea to play a game that's decided in 30 turns instead of 200.

Also basing a rule on whether or not you can declare war and attack on some mechanism like size or score or number of planets or number of ships is unreliable. You can run up the score by building many empty hulls and if someone depends on "teching" and "turtling" instead of expansion, number of colonized planets is unreliable (for example if someone played Nomads in Adamant).

My rule set was based on Imperator Fyron's Gamey Tactics listing with a bit of expansion on treaties.
http://www.spaceempires.net/home/content-36.html

Brian

brianeyci wrote:Regarding Nova's suggestion about "gangbang" rules. It's true that two players versus one come out on top if everything else's even. So five or seven on one would be a slaughter, right?

-You prefer games that make it hard to break from everything being even by starting with ungodly levels of planets and resources.

brianeyci wrote:The thing is I have faith in the "invisible hand." That is, unless two or three players make a deal before the game starts saying they'll kill everybody else first before turning on each other, there's no need for limiting the number of military alliances. If everybody is honorable and makes decisions based on in game reasons and not out of game reasons there's no reason why the invisible hand shouldn't work. And I have no doubt everybody plays fair.

-People play to win and the best way to do that is a gang bang. It might not be clear who is going to be shafted or in what order, but in games like this it almost always happens unless there are rules to restrict it. I realize you guys like to gang up on players that you percieve as threatening, but that really makes the game much less interesting. What is point in playing a game if it basically boils down to voting off players like some cheasy reality tv show? The point of the suggested rules is to make it less of a popularity contest and more of a contest of skill and intelligence. That is also the reason behind removing all of the "gamey options," but those are far less ownerous since they largely involve cooperation betweens players to help each other instead of cooperation between players to hurt another player.

brianeyci wrote:Also because the rule seems unenforcable. What if three or four players attack one mega evil empire and that evil empire claims the rule was violated, but the two camps just happened to attack at the same time and aren't in cahoots? I don't want to get into rules lawyering at all. Nephtys' mod shouldn't need it. It'll be fast and sweet and if SE:V comes out on September 12th, it might be a good idea to play a game that's decided in 30 turns instead of 200.

-A minor detail which is easily resolved by requiring that players post who they are attacking. First post wins. Your alternative is to simply permit players to unabashidly gang up on another player.

brianeyci wrote:Also basing a rule on whether or not you can declare war and attack on some mechanism like size or score or number of planets or number of ships is unreliable. You can run up the score by building many empty hulls and if someone depends on "teching" and "turtling" instead of expansion, number of colonized planets is unreliable (for example if someone played Nomads in Adamant).

-The empire size criteria isn't really necessary and upon second thought probably not a good idea. It could simply be left to: no gang bangs.

brianeyci wrote:My rule set was based on Imperator Fyron's Gamey Tactics listing with a bit of expansion on treaties.
http://www.spaceempires.net/home/content-36.html

Brian

-No offense, but a bunch of people complaining x, y, or z tactics are gamey isn't an argument. In fact, it is completely ridiculous considering there is no mention of gang banging which is the most gamey tactic there is short of a software bug exploit.
-What are the details of Neph's mod and where is the mod found?

-I forgot, we should set the number of roll back/pause requests that are allowed. Additionally, there should be the option to e-mail the admin your game file should the PBW site be down thus allowing a no penalty roll back for tech. reasons.

You can already email the PBW site when it is down so that it accepts the file as soon as it is up.

Alliances are part and parcel of multiplayer games.

GuppyShark wrote:You can already email the PBW site when it is down so that it accepts the file as soon as it is up.

Alliances are part and parcel of multiplayer games.

-Really? I didn't know that. The e-mail system is buggy though.
-My point is that if you are going to allow players to cooperated in the expressed effort to actively kill off another player then why restrict other less problematic forms of cooperation? This is especially odd when the other forms of cooperation don't result in such an "unfair" disadvantage since players generally use them at the same time to get ahead instead of excluding a single player. The exception is Adamant where racial tech. restricts things, but even that can be evened out by requiring an equal # of different races.

I'm putting a teeny bit of polish on my mod now but it'll be provided in a link tomorrow morn.

Nova Andromeda wrote:-You prefer games that make it hard to break from everything being even by starting with ungodly levels of planets and resources.

No, I only want 10 homeworlds because every time I suggested it nobody wanted it. I actually would prefer a VERY slow tech game, low technology, high technology cost, 1 homeworld, a mod with a fortress planet (like Adamant), extremely large galaxy.

But then, the game would take forever, and people here have jobs (or two jobs or school or boyfriends or...) and can't play 24 hour turns .

-People play to win and the best way to do that is a gang bang. It might not be clear who is going to be shafted or in what order, but in games like this it almost always happens unless there are rules to restrict it. I realize you guys like to gang up on players that you percieve as threatening, but that really makes the game much less interesting. What is point in playing a game if it basically boils down to voting off players like some cheasy reality tv show? The point of the suggested rules is to make it less of a popularity contest and more of a contest of skill and intelligence. That is also the reason behind removing all of the "gamey options," but those are far less ownerous since they largely involve cooperation betweens players to help each other instead of cooperation between players to hurt another player.

There is no popularity contest with an invisible hand. The point is nobody will gang up unless there's an urgent need to. SDN players don't play with a popularity contest in mind.

If your rule was present in B5, the Minbari, Vorlons, Shadows and Dilgar wouldn't be allowed to war with the Brakiri. In Adamant, the Great Alliance working behind the scenes wouldn't have started.

-A minor detail which is easily resolved by requiring that players post who they are attacking. First post wins. Your alternative is to simply permit players to unabashidly gang up on another player.

Invisible hand. As long as players make decisions based on in-game instead of out-of-game relationships, players will not team up with each other to eliminate everybody else just because they want to win.

I don't think Nephtys will always team up with Covenant regardless of whether her race and Covenant's are enemies just because they're close friends. Nobody sucks up to Dalton and allies with him because he's a mod and should be popular (or maybe not).

-The empire size criteria isn't really necessary and upon second thought probably not a good idea. It could simply be left to: no gang bangs.

Well then define gang bang. Besides it's already covered in a way you don't know. "Empires making contact/plans with each other by e-mail before they make contact in the game".

-No offense, but a bunch of people complaining x, y, or z tactics are gamey isn't an argument. In fact, it is completely ridiculous considering there is no mention of gang banging which is the most gamey tactic there is short of a software bug exploit.

The only point is there's people who've played hundreds of SE:IV games and if your problem was really a problem I'm sure it would've popped up. Sometimes you HAVE to gang up on a more powerful player because he's so damn good. Like you last game. A quarter of a million research, I bet you were pushing juggernauts, wormhole openers, and planet killing weapons . I've seen games where 1 player held off 6 others. Not just held off, but nearly won. And this was with STOCK SE:IV (all six of us hadn't researched null space weapons yet and the 1 player was using crystalline and the best SE:IV player in the community, but still possible.)

Brian

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-You prefer games that make it hard to break from everything being even by starting with ungodly levels of planets and resources.

No, I only want 10 homeworlds because every time I suggested it nobody wanted it. I actually would prefer a VERY slow tech game, low technology, high technology cost, 1 homeworld, a mod with a fortress planet (like Adamant), extremely large galaxy.

-10 homeworlds and hightech are good for quick games that involve a minimal amount of strategy. Perhaps we should consider this for our last SEIV game?

brianeyci wrote:But then, the game would take forever, and people here have jobs (or two jobs or school or boyfriends or...) and can't play 24 hour turns .

-Because grilfriends never get in the way? I actually don't mind a game taking a year or more to complete so long as it doesn't eat up much time/day.

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-People play to win and the best way to do that is a gang bang. It might not be clear who is going to be shafted or in what order, but in games like this it almost always happens unless there are rules to restrict it. I realize you guys like to gang up on players that you percieve as threatening, but that really makes the game much less interesting. What is point in playing a game if it basically boils down to voting off players like some cheasy reality tv show? The point of the suggested rules is to make it less of a popularity contest and more of a contest of skill and intelligence. That is also the reason behind removing all of the "gamey options," but those are far less ownerous since they largely involve cooperation betweens players to help each other instead of cooperation between players to hurt another player.

If your rule was present in B5, the Minbari, Vorlons, Shadows and Dilgar wouldn't be allowed to war with the Brakiri. In Adamant, the Great Alliance working behind the scenes wouldn't have started.

-That's my point. Once a player gets that far ahead through ability alone they deserve to win unless another player makes a truly stunning comeback. You'll have to tell me about this Great Alliance after the game. I wonder when you managed to put it together. BTW, you can always conceed the game and agree to continue w/ everyone versus the top player.
-You still haven't addressed the point that ganging up on a player is inherently unfair, basically a voter system, and far worse than all the gamey options listed in your file.

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-A minor detail which is easily resolved by requiring that players post who they are attacking. First post wins. Your alternative is to simply permit players to unabashidly gang up on another player.

Invisible hand. As long as players make decisions based on in-game instead of out-of-game relationships, players will not team up with each other to eliminate everybody else just because they want to win.

-I don't believe in fairy dust and that includes your invisible hand (which remains undefined btw).
-You really think players aren't playing to win? I beg to differ. The fact that SDN players have a history of ganging up on other players when they were threatened with losing is very strong evidence you are wrong.

brianeyci wrote:I don't think Nephtys will always team up with Covenant regardless of whether her race and Covenant's are enemies just because they're close friends. Nobody sucks up to Dalton and allies with him because he's a mod and should be popular (or maybe not).

-I don't like to rely on vauge ideas about a player's styles or habits. If we want to play a certain way we should write it down IMO.

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-The empire size criteria isn't really necessary and upon second thought probably not a good idea. It could simply be left to: no gang bangs.

Well then define gang bang. Besides it's already covered in a way you don't know. "Empires making contact/plans with each other by e-mail before they make contact in the game".

-A gang bang is when two or more players attack one player. Usually, the attack is coordinated or involves one or more of the players taking advantage of the weakened position of the target player. One player attacking multiple players and getting owned doesn't count.
-Contact doesn't matter because you obviously can't hurt another empire you aren't in contact with.

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-No offense, but a bunch of people complaining x, y, or z tactics are gamey isn't an argument. In fact, it is completely ridiculous considering there is no mention of gang banging which is the most gamey tactic there is short of a software bug exploit.

The only point is there's people who've played hundreds of SE:IV games and if your problem was really a problem I'm sure it would've popped up.

-It is a problem and has popped up. However, it is not at all unique to SEIV.

brianeyci wrote:Sometimes you HAVE to gang up on a more powerful player because he's so damn good. Like you last game. A quarter of a million research, I bet you were pushing juggernauts, wormhole openers, and planet killing weapons . I've seen games where 1 player held off 6 others. Not just held off, but nearly won. And this was with STOCK SE:IV (all six of us hadn't researched null space weapons yet and the 1 player was using crystalline and the best SE:IV player in the community, but still possible.)

-As someone who isn't half bad at strategic games I can say that it annoys me to no end when other players gang up on me just because they aren't as good. It's one thing if I agree to such a handy cap to begin with (which I'll do if I'm really that much better than another player), but I've lost track of the number of times I've had to fight off 3 or more players at once.

http://seiv.pbw.cc/Download/filelib/138 ... -11-06.zip

Wheee. It's the current version. I only hope there's enough distribution of the special thruster/engine/shield/hull planets.

Nova - you're coming across more like you'd rather play Head-to-head or solitaire than a multiplayer game. Diplomacy and scheming is part of any game with more than two sides.

I'd rather see the game decided based on strategic thinking than "through ability alone" which seems to me to represent min-maxing and borderline exploits more than anything I would consider a worthy skill.

And when I say this, remember that I lost more than anyone to these alliances. Half the B5 races ganged up on the Shadows.

Nova Andromeda wrote:-10 homeworlds and hightech are good for quick games that involve a minimal amount of strategy. Perhaps we should consider this for our last SEIV game?

This may be the last one. I only like 10 homeworlds and high technology because the game's faster that way.

-Because grilfriends never get in the way? I actually don't mind a game taking a year or more to complete so long as it doesn't eat up much time/day.

A lot of people probably do mind if it takes a year or more. All of our games took six months or less. Well except B5. But there's RP for that.

-That's my point. Once a player gets that far ahead through ability alone they deserve to win unless another player makes a truly stunning comeback. You'll have to tell me about this Great Alliance after the game. I wonder when you managed to put it together. BTW, you can always conceed the game and agree to continue w/ everyone versus the top player.

It wasn't so "great" really. I put it together after I lost my war to Nephtys. And, ability alone isn't the only factor in SE:IV games. If you are that competitive and want a 1v1 there is always King of the Hill on Shrapnel Games forum. I asked about a ladder earlier and nobody's really interested.

-You still haven't addressed the point that ganging up on a player is inherently unfair, basically a voter system, and far worse than all the gamey options listed in your file.

It isn't unfair if it's decided by a game mechanic, whether somebody's powerful or not. If you're powerful a lot of smaller lesser empires might be necessary to hold the powerful player off or defeat him/her. As long as this is decided through in-game mechanics I don't see a problem.

-I don't believe in fairy dust and that includes your invisible hand (which remains undefined btw).

Invisible hand refers to the free market in economics. People look after themselves and a hypothetical everybody gang up on another player only happens if it's in their best interest.

You're worrying to me sounds like worrying that all the banks, all the oil companies, all the whatever you want to name it would team up and gogue the consumer when if there's healthy competition that's not a problem because there's like 10 people in our games.

-You really think players aren't playing to win? I beg to differ. The fact that SDN players have a history of ganging up on other players when they were threatened with losing is very strong evidence you are wrong.

No they are playing to have fun. Several times this has happened.

1. ST Mod - Borg and Ferengi versus the Klingons, the Romulans, Kirk's Federation and Picard's Federation. Things looked pretty bleak for awhile and Trogdor had an unstoppable force of 150 super duper warbirds each one of which could kill 30 Borg cubes. I and Nephtys did not quit even though at the time it seemed like we had no hope because it was fun.
2. B5 - I could have won on turn 20.
3. Adamant - I knew on turn 30 I was fucked.

People on SDN team up because it keeps you alive to keep having fun. In ST Mod we had a rule that you couldn't completely destroy another player, just absorb him (and he had to listen to you, couldn't backstab).

-I don't like to rely on vauge ideas about a player's styles or habits. If we want to play a certain way we should write it down IMO.

I understand how some people might not like e-mail wheeling and dealing or a flurry of PMS and would rather just play SE:IV and kill. Restricting how someone plays is unenforcable unless you define exactly what it means to "gangbang."

-A gang bang is when two or more players attack one player. Usually, the attack is coordinated or involves one or more of the players taking advantage of the weakened position of the target player. One player attacking multiple players and getting owned doesn't count.

Define weak. Define strong. Define coordinated.

-Contact doesn't matter because you obviously can't hurt another empire you aren't in contact with.

Well I see the problem.

You think that a number of players attacking a lesser number of players is inherently wrong. I do not. I only consider it wrong if an OOC deal is made between players based on OOC factors like, whether the person's a friend, before the empires meet, instead of IC factors. And even then I honestly don't really care if two or more players gang up.

And even if they did. There's always the invisible hand. That is, greed.

-It is a problem and has popped up. However, it is not at all unique to SEIV.

I don't see it as a problem.

-As someone who isn't half bad at strategic games I can say that it annoys me to no end when other players gang up on me just because they aren't as good. It's one thing if I agree to such a handy cap to begin with (which I'll do if I'm really that much better than another player), but I've lost track of the number of times I've had to fight off 3 or more players at once.

I would consider it flattering if players teamed up on me all the time.

Brian

Download a Sample Max/Minned Empire Here :
www.sfandfbooks.com/maxminned.emp

Make a SaveGame and Empires directory in the Nephtys Mod directory or you'll be constantly harassed to change directories and get errors when you try and save or slip in an empire.

Tips (I'm a noob so take it at face value)
1. Use the Rock Colony instead of Outpost for more cargo room for population.
2. Build rate is optimzed so you can go ten turns on emergency build with a rock/ice/gas colony (not outpost). However, it costs a lot of organics to make colony ships and if you go emergency build from turn one you'll run out. Solution #1 is build at normal rate (loser way I think). Solution #2 is build at normal rate for a few turns then go emergency. Either you can scrap some mineral outposts in your homeworld and build three organic outposts, or if you're lucky and see a 150% organic world in your home system build a colonizer on normal build, colonize the world and build 3 organic facilities then go emergency on your homeworld.
3. It is luck, but there's luck in skill. You still have to colonize the right planets. My suggestion is keep pushing with your ten colonizers and keep them moving until their supply runs out and colonize. When your homeworld goes off emergency build, you should already have a world nearby with a shipyard and have sufficient population on it to go emergency build again. I also suggest you colonize the hull type planets first "there's an alien space ship blah blah" ruins since at least last time we played hull sizes were much rarer than weapons and other technology.
4. Depending on how you play you might want to change this empire a little or a lot. If you don't like emergency build, you don't need so much build rate. If you like orbital shipyards (I hate them) you can make them instead of colonizing a planet nearby.

Empires due for upload in 48 hours. Make sure to change and list your shipset type so nobody has the same shipset please. Rules to follow. Rules will likely be "anything goes" because we expect the game to finish in 30-40 turns.

Brian

P.S. One major change you may want to consider is lowering maintainence from 120 to 110 to get more points. Maintainence in this mod is apparently not an issue at all. The extra points could easily purchase propulsion experts for the one extra move point. Or you could pump up your resource production to god-like or higher. You also may want Gas Giants (120% of 25 is 30 and 120% of 20 is 24 so you get much larger planets but gas giants are rarer so who knows).

Busy people like Dalton will like this mod. If you are too busy arsed to make your own competitive empire and upload just take this and change the empire name, shipset, password, planet type (maybe to Gas) etc., and upload to PBW, in 10 minutes. I hope everybody uploads when I come home 13 hours later, ttyl .

Oh Settings
10 Homeworlds
Large Galaxy (with ten players we have to)
Don't know the type yet
Low technology cost
High Resource Start Good Planet Type
No Intel, No surrender, No technology trading, no gifting
Last Man Standing

-How does one install multiple mods of SEIV at the same time?

brianeyci wrote: If you are that competitive and want a 1v1 there is always King of the Hill on Shrapnel Games forum. I asked about a ladder earlier and nobody's really interested.

-It doesn't need to be 1v1. It can be 2v2, 3v3, 4v5, etc. However, 2+v1 isn't fair when the 2+ start the fight. If the game has reached the stage where 2+ is necessary against a single empire then those players should admit defeat. A subjugation treaty would allow continued play as would alliance vs. alliance play. Another possibility is to setup an "end game senario." For example, in the Adamant game we could have continued the game, but agreed that it would be everyone vs. Trogdor and myself (6-8v2). This would have kept things in the open and given me the chance to decline if I wanted to.

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-You still haven't addressed the point that ganging up on a player is inherently unfair, basically a voter system, and far worse than all the gamey options listed in your file.

It isn't unfair if it's decided by a game mechanic, whether somebody's powerful or not.

-That's just like saying: "You know I'm losing my boxing match so I'm going to have my friend over there help me out."

brianeyci wrote:People look after themselves and a hypothetical everybody gang up on another player only happens if it's in their best interest.

-It's always in there best interest. It removes another player (generally a stronger one).

brianeyci wrote: You're worrying to me sounds like worrying that all the banks, all the oil companies, all the whatever you want to name it would team up and gogue the consumer when if there's healthy competition that's not a problem because there's like 10 people in our games.

-Your analogy is inherently flawed since we are playing a 0 sum game and your analogy isn't 0 sum. In addition, rules are vitally necessary to stop the formation of monopolies and abuse by banks, etc. Just look at corporate corruption these days and that is w/ regulation.

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-You really think players aren't playing to win? I beg to differ. The fact that SDN players have a history of ganging up on other players when they were threatened with losing is very strong evidence you are wrong.

No they are playing to have fun.

-Playing to win and playing for fun aren't mutually exclusive.

brianeyci wrote:In ST Mod we had a rule that you couldn't completely destroy another player, just absorb him (and he had to listen to you, couldn't backstab).

-I like that rule and you should note that it helps remove the need for gang banging.

brianeyci wrote:

Nova Andromeda wrote:-A gang bang is when two or more players attack one player. Usually, the attack is coordinated or involves one or more of the players taking advantage of the weakened position of the target player. One player attacking multiple players and getting owned doesn't count.

Define weak. Define strong. Define coordinated.

-One doesn't need to understand what weak, strong, or coordinated mean to understand what a gang bang is. Any time two or more players actively go after one player (i.e, attack that one player) it is a gangbang.
-Coordinated is just what it sounds like: two or more players coordinate their actions (the method doesn't matter,).
-The "weakened position" is simply a reference to the fact that the player is already fighting a war which reduces her ability to defend herself against a new opponent.

brianeyci wrote: You think that a number of players attacking a lesser number of players is inherently wrong. I do not.

-The I guess you wouldn't mind if we play a game of football, but I get two points for every goal and you get only one? Or perhaps we can have a boxing match, but it will be me and my friend against you if I start to lose? I wouldn't insist on these advantages, but I need them to win. Do you see what I'm saying yet?

brianeyci wrote: I would consider it flattering if players teamed up on me all the time.

-Flattering or not it makes the game much less fun. If you really need such a handicap then simply ask for it before the game starts. If gang banging is allowed I will strongly consider taking maximum advantage of it (if I can figure out how to get into the next game).

GuppyShark wrote:Nova - you're coming across more like you'd rather play Head-to-head or solitaire than a multiplayer game. Diplomacy and scheming is part of any game with more than two sides.

-No I'd like the chance to resolve a fair fight instead of having to assume that I have to beat 2:1 or greater odds as soon as I start pulling ahead or winning a war. In addition, there is always the chance for alliance vs. alliance play. Diplomacy and scheming will become even more important if gang banging isn't allowed. It will force players to plan ahead and make alliances since they will know that they can't count on ganging up on another player to save their bacon.

GuppyShark wrote:I'd rather see the game decided based on strategic thinking than "through ability alone" which seems to me to represent min-maxing and borderline exploits more than anything I would consider a worthy skill.

-Strategic thinking is an ability and tested far more thoroughly in games where ganging up on another player isn't allowed. Ganging up on another player is the lazy man's strategy and doesn't require any thought at all. It only requires a bit of charisma and desire to win.

I don't see a problem with multiple players vs one or lesser, if the stronger empires are truely stronger. There's still equal fight in that. What's the fun in one super empire stomping each other, one by one?

In the first ST Game, me and Brian fought three other players, and did well. So numbers of players is not inherently unfair. Only the number of assets they possess combined.

Nephtys wrote:I don't see a problem with multiple players vs one or lesser, if the stronger empires are truely stronger. There's still equal fight in that. What's the fun in one super empire stomping each other, one by one?

-If the game has reached the point where everyone agrees that there is no hope to defeat this "stronger empire" then the game is basically over. The game can continue w/ an alliance versus the strong empire, but that empire should be given the choice and not "led on". In addition, there may be two or more "stronger empires" and a number of smaller ones. In this case you ruin the chance for a very interesting game by having a number of smaller empires kill off one of the stronger empires.
-Additionally, there is always the subjugation option to keep players in the game.

So let me see if I understand you. Two versus one is okay, as long as the two admit they've already lost and the one agrees to continue?

I'm sorry, but that sounds like nothing more than a major ego trip. What's the difference between admitting you lose and continuing to play and not admitting you "lose" (debatable) and continuing to play?

There hasn't been any leading on in any of the games we've played because "score is visible to all" is turned on and you can check the treaty grid in diplomacy and see whether people are partnering up against you.

Also consider that in SE:IV if you get x times the score of the second place AI player, every single AI declares war on you and they all team up and you can never make peace with any AI's again no matter how you suck up to them. So it seems the gangbang is an inherent part of SE:IV (it's called mega-evil empire setting, based on score I believe.)

As for subjugation, that wouldn't stop two or more players from teaming up against you. It'd only keep a player who was conquered alive.

There's already a choice anyway. The player can quit. PBW makes it all easy, withdraw and you don't delay anybody else. I would not want to see anybody quit just because 2 people gang up on them in a hissy fit, but it's possible and already has been done (Guppy quit after everybody curbstomped the Shadows. Well there was something else, but let's not get into that. Later he came back. And he admits wheeling and dealing's a part of the game.)

Anyway SE:IV doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. You can set it to peace for X years, set it to 1 year (ten turns). Then an alliance of players could win. But again, what's the point of saying an alliance won or making it formal through a game mechanic. As far as I'm concerned I and Nephtys both subjugated the galaxy in the first ST game and we both won.

Ganging up on another player is the lazy man's strategy and doesn't require any thought at all. It only requires a bit of charisma and desire to win.

No. It requires that you not only make yourself vulnerable to another player, but track technology so you don't overlap. And, because of n-squared law, the ships are far more effective under the control of one player than separate so for an alliance to be truly effective on player has to gift the other player his fleet to combine into one or else you're just fighting two separate weaker fleets that would be easy for the stronger empire to pick off.

If you knew the amount of effort that went into a close alliance... I exchanged hundreds of pms with Nephtys in ST, Tuxedo in Adamant and ST... it is not easy at all. Tech trading in particular is a pain in the ass.

If gang banging is allowed I will strongly consider taking maximum advantage of it (if I can figure out how to get into the next game)

E-mails, pms and diplomacy. I suggest you try it, it's fun. But you might not get what you think you'll get out of it. A person doesn't enter into an alliance unless they get something out of it. Usually that means survival (allies of necessity) or synergy (proximity). Not some hit-list to take down people one by one depending on how good you think they are at SE:IV .

Brian