Space Empires V PBW game?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-17 04:00pm

It's simultaneous combat and movement.

All ships move at the same time when Tuxedo processes. How else can it work? What if the Galactic Empire glasses a planet on your end, but on my end the Federation swoops in with a fleet to intercept and destroys them? Who's turn file would be right?

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darthkommandant · Post by **darthkommandant** » 2007-05-17 05:21pm

Ok thanks for the help. Just had to make sure.

ColonialAdmiral · Post by **ColonialAdmiral** » 2007-05-17 05:33pm

brianeyci wrote:It's simultaneous combat and movement.

All ships move at the same time when Tuxedo processes. How else can it work? What if the Galactic Empire glasses a planet on your end, but on my end the Federation swoops in with a fleet to intercept and destroys them? Who's turn file would be right? .

According to "The Manual" (Peice of Crap) Each month is divided into 30 days. Every movement point is divided amoungst these "Days". So a ship with 6 movement points will move once every 5 "Days". 6 times 5=30.

Thats the way its supposed to work anyway. Thats how it works in all my other PBW games...

EDIT: I'd rather not restart but I will if its necessary. The reason I don't want to restart is because then the game will probably be offline for more time, and we've already been waiting weeks to start...
I'm happy with my empire though, and while I do have a good start spot, I don't mind restarting. I'd rather have a strong oponent from the start, (Although I don't really think that many empire traits really matter, unless you are a min/maxer...) Especially in a game like this, where no-one can really "Lose" because a defeated empire has to serve the empire that conquered it...

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-17 05:45pm

Yep, I knew about the days thing heh heh, but didn't want to mention it. Obviously something has to happen one after the other. You're looking at the guy who counted movement squares to lure a fleet in on day 14, knowing that combat started every 5th day and taking advantage of that to lure a guy into a warp point attack in SE:IV.

I hope I don't have to do any bullshit micromanagement like that ever again though. That day stuff, I don't think will be necessary at all in SE:V. For one thing, warp point travel isn't so broken, and getting the first shot isn't as important. Real-time combat rules.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 05:46pm

In all fairness CA, the racial stats do matter pretty heavily. An across-the-board penalty to research is a pretty hefty thing, especially if you get no benefit in exchange. Add that into several other minuses that are uncompensated or in areas we've agreed not to use (Intelligence) and it's basically playing with a handicap.

Theocracy and Merchants add up to -10 percent research penalty, and smart doesn't even make up for it, so it's not like you could even make the case for it even being 'average'. That's basically the only racial I got. Add in to the fact that this Emp file doesn't have Foolish chosen and you start seeing why I'm frustrated--it only could have been worse if I had Cunning Xenophobes.

I'd ask you if you would like to play the race I am, all things equal. Essentially half of the points and a pair of detrimental cultures and governments? Where do I sign up?

And if we restarted, we'd only be back one day of work. I'd send my file in, Tux would roll the turn, we'd take our rounds, and be back to now. If everyone did it by tomorrow we could get in several turns over the weekend.

So that's the case for it. You'll be getting a more worthwhile opponent who can actually play, rather than just try to make up for the failures of the Empire I'm saddled with. I don't really want to 'serve' an Empire just because I got screwed by my file and caught it on turn 1. I'm not sure who it's up to, but it's not just a little failure to min/max. Even if I wanted to play a Roleplay inspired empire, this would be bad.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-17 06:04pm

Hey, about the surrender thing. Depending on the empire, and the conditions, surrender might not be possible.

I want the possibility to fight to the death if I want to. If the winner can't choose whether to annihilate the loser, at the very least the loser can refuse to surrender and fight, rather than be assimilated/francophoned/enslaved/coded/freed whatever. The game might not be fun for some people who have to pony up to another person, egos might not match. At the same time, might not be compatible in RP for the Romulans to surrender to the Federation.

Also, I want to be able to "free" empires. That is, if I come in with a huge fleet and there's no master fleet in orbit of the planet, I want to have the option of making them my slaves too, or just freeing them so they have their own government and foreign affairs too.

ColonialAdmiral · Post by **ColonialAdmiral** » 2007-05-17 06:12pm

So you're saying that you have no bonuses in any area whatsoever? I know that racials matter heavily, but there is more to this game than research...(Although that is a big part). I guess that a -10% is pretty bad...(Unless you are a carefully crafted warrior race, that gives you a head on attack bonus...) I did it once, worked pretty well.

I'll restart if everybody else is willing to.
*Kicks a can*

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2007-05-17 06:24pm

I'm up for a restart, just because I don't like having someone else's population portrait.

Luke Starkiller · Post by **Luke Starkiller** » 2007-05-17 06:25pm

It sounds like Covenant got screwed hard, I wouldn't object to a restart.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 06:48pm

ColonialAdmiral wrote:So you're saying that you have no bonuses in any area whatsoever? I know that racials matter heavily, but there is more to this game than research...(Although that is a big part). I guess that a -10% is pretty bad...(Unless you are a carefully crafted warrior race, that gives you a head on attack bonus...) I did it once, worked pretty well.

I'll restart if everybody else is willing to.
*Kicks a can*

Well, I do have that incredibly awesome -5 percent to maintenance costs thing. Which, as you know, is not quite as good as the +10 percent racials that you can get for 500 points, but it TOTALLY is worth it for a mere 5 percent of your research. That and my people are more loyal than normal. I'm sure that matters. I think.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-05-17 09:20pm

As Merchants, don't you get +5% to trade? Because that can more than make up for all the deficiencies right there. If you're at 30% trade with, say, 8 players, a 5% bonus to that is much bigger than a 10% penalty to your own research. Also, I don't know about others, but I mostly picked my government type based on roleplay reasons, so it's not like you're going to be up against totally min-maxed empires.

I'm not totally opposed to a restart, but I'm definitely not a fan of the idea. Consensus seems to be that people are willing to do it, however, so just say the word and we'll restart.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 09:30pm

I'm not opposed to merchants in reality, I'm opposed to Theocracy and the broken racials and lack of fluff text. Not only is that not a very useful Government for roleplay purposes, but it lowers my research while also only increasing my Intel and such attributes.

I'd like to restart, but if people are gonna get pissed off and drop or something, I'll just deal with it. There's a few things that are just pointlessly dumb (like no Foolish, which is a waste of 500 points that nobody should have missed) on top of the fact that I just didn't want to play the Empire I got.

So, if it's all up to me, I'd say restart and do it tonight so that people can re-do their turns right now. Send me a PM if you're willing to go for it. If you really aren't comfortable, I can deal. If it's all up to me, and nobody has any concerns, I'd say go for it. These take a freaking long time to finish, and I'd rather ask for it now than kick myself for it down the line.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 09:36pm

Holy Jesusfuck, it's doing it again.

Okay, I had prepped my Empire file earlier, hoping that if people said okay that I could load it up real fast and send it off. However, life hates me, and I think the Turanic Raiders haxed teh interwebz and fucked my file again.

Because after saving it, loading it, saving it again and then turning off to do some work, coming back on and loading up SEV to ponder my race--IT WENT BACK TO THEOCRATS.

Holy crud! This is ridiculous! What the hell do I need to do? It keeps resetting my file!

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-05-17 09:41pm

Weird. The two options I see are to either reinstall the game and try again or get someone to make your empire for you.

EDIT: By the way, we'll go ahead and restart. I can't ask someone to commit to a long game feeling that they were screwed from the start (well, unless it was by the randomness of the map generator).

EDIT2: The best way to do this is for Cov to send me his .emp file to my e-mail, and then I'll just regenerate using the .emp files I already have for everyone else and upload it as a replacement turn. That way, no one will have to rejoin, get approved, upload .emps, etc. I'll also see if I can figure out why Guppy's portrait got changed. PM me your empire password so I can play around with it.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 09:47pm

I think I know the issue--I'd load a pre-made lategame I had where I could play with tech. But that was old, and had my old empire setup. I think it reset it to that every time I'd load to play with concepts.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-05-17 09:58pm

We'll do the restart at 9 PM PDT tonight, assuming I have Cov's .emp by then. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out what went wrong with Guppy's race portrait by then. If not, it's only a race portrait, after all.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 10:03pm

Okay, it's not resetting it anymore, which is good news. I named the new empire hiigarans (plural!) and deleted the rest.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-05-17 10:12pm

I just started a game with the Davion race portrait and it works fine for me.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 10:36pm

Checked the racefile 5 more times. It loads properly. I emailed it to Tux right now, so we should all be good to go.

ColonialAdmiral · Post by **ColonialAdmiral** » 2007-05-17 10:53pm

Covenant wrote:I'm not opposed to merchants in reality, I'm opposed to Theocracy and the broken racials and lack of fluff text. Not only is that not a very useful Government for roleplay purposes, but it lowers my research while also only increasing my Intel and such attributes.

Okay you win.

Lets all make sure and check our files though....Just to be sure.

darthkommandant · Post by **darthkommandant** » 2007-05-17 11:05pm

I changed a few things in my .emp file and am resending it now to take full advantage of the restart.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-05-17 11:10pm

It might be a good idea for everyone to check their empires and make sure everything is kosher, so we don't have to restart again because someone else noticed this or that is wrong with his empire.

Further, I've made a backup for empire /SteamApps/Common/SE5 folder, in addition to the conventional steam backup. Supposedly this mod should work with future patches, but I'm not taking any chances this game. Of course, ideally the mod will work fine with future patches (as it should, if we're to be playing a long term game!), hopefully it will.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-17 11:13pm

InnocentBystander wrote:It might be a good idea for everyone to check their empires and make sure everything is kosher, so we don't have to restart again because someone else noticed this or that is wrong with his empire.

Further, I've made a backup for empire /SteamApps/Common/SE5 folder, in addition to the conventional steam backup. Supposedly this mod should work with future patches, but I'm not taking any chances this game. Of course, ideally the mod will work fine with future patches (as it should, if we're to be playing a long term game!), hopefully it will.

I agree. Things like portraits not showing up, or a messed up custom shipset (like the Nod was) or screwed up racials are pretty easy to miss. I got some errors from the Gallente when I loaded up a new game... but I assume it's fine. Still, I've been noticing that SEV has a lot more dependencies than before, so I'd caution others not to make the mistake I did. ;P

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-17 11:16pm

IB wrote:Further, I've made a backup for empire /SteamApps/Common/SE5 folder, in addition to the conventional steam backup.

Already done, I thought this was standard fare for everybody with steam. Everybody with steam should do the following: right click on the steamapps/common/se5 and do "add to se5.rar" or however you zip up and archive files on your computer. Steam does not allow rollbacks to previous versions, so if anything ever happens that archive is your way back in the game. Imagine playing for six months, one turn away from a battle of galactic proportions, and puttering out. I'd probably slit my wrists hahaha, so save yourself the trouble.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-05-17 11:29pm

darthkommandant wrote:I changed a few things in my .emp file and am resending it now to take full advantage of the restart.

I didn't receive anything. Make sure you're sending to arthurtuxedo AT gmail DOT com (replacing those AT's and DOT's with the actual characters, of course). You'd have to be pretty quick about it to get it in on time, though.