Space Empires V PBW game?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-23 03:54pm

My opinion is this.

Colony trading is okay, to save a person from dying. This shouldn't happen at all, but if it comes to pass that someone's being an ass and doesn't obey the total annihilation rule, trading one shit planet in the middle of nowhere helps the guy stay in RP. Also I want to be able to trade colonies in... trade, for land grabs and such, land deals, etc. What you're saying won't happen, because migration is easier. Nobody has said shit about migration, but that's what I was getting at in my RP. I won't use Keevan's methane breathers to make a methane rock planet green for me, because I think that's lame ass. I don't know if other people are making migration treaties to do this though, but I'm making my treaties for RP purposes, not to power game. If someone does make a colony of foreign slaves, I expect them to be the bad guys for sure, and to adequately rp a slave colony at the least or I'll be pretty pissed.

Old technology being swapped is bullshit, should not happen. And I would like to add an addendum, that you can only technology trade to a conquered empire. To increase technology base your scientists and engineers should have unfettered access to their civilization. And if there was no annihilation rule, that conquered empire would be yours anyway, so tech trading to your slaves doesn't seem broken at all.

EDIT: And for those who say, how come the good guys get short changed, the good guys already are shortchanged. They don't planetary bombard, they don't destroy whole solar systems, they don't use viral weapons. At least most good guys don't. So if you are a bad guy, I don't really care if two bad guy empires swap population and make slave colonies, as long as they RP it well. Same goes for any cheap trick, I don't really care as long as it's RPed well. It better not be "we're happy to emigrate to a new empire and become slaves in our new life because we want to" or it's lame as shit.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-23 04:01pm

brianeyci wrote:My opinion is this.

Colony trading is okay, to save a person from dying. This shouldn't happen at all, but if it comes to pass that someone's being an ass and doesn't obey the total annihilation rule, trading one shit planet in the middle of nowhere helps the guy stay in RP. Also I want to be able to trade colonies in... trade, for land grabs and such, land deals, etc. What you're saying won't happen, because migration is easier. Nobody has said shit about migration, but that's what I was getting at in my RP. I won't use Keevan's methane breathers to make a methane rock planet green for me, because I think that's lame ass. I don't know if other people are making migration treaties to do this though, but I'm making my treaties for RP purposes, not to power game. If someone does make a colony of foreign slaves, I expect them to be the bad guys for sure, and to adequately rp a slave colony at the least or I'll be pretty pissed.

Old technology being swapped is bullshit, should not happen. And I would like to add an addendum, that you can only technology trade to a conquered empire. To increase technology base your scientists and engineers should have unfettered access to their civilization. And if there was no annihilation rule, that conquered empire would be yours anyway, so tech trading to your slaves doesn't seem broken at all.

I'd agree with all those rules. We'd have anti-slaughter exceptions to help people who are being genocided, but other than that we should keep our populations, tech trees, and colonies seperate. If someone wants to invade someone else's world to use them as lungs on another planet, then let them RP it as a slave colony... or maybe in the case of the Federation tackling the Ur-Quan, a liberation.

But I know that most of us are going to have opportunities to swap pops and cross-colonize, and it's tempting, but I wanted to ask. We want to keep things within the spirit of the game, and I wouldn't like to see that kinda fall apart on turn 5 when people meet their allies and decide to trade everything, migrate populations, and metagame.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-23 04:07pm

Metagame is already going on. Planning and scheming behind the scenes, e-mails, pms, etc.

Population trading = slave colonies. I don't care how creative a person is: a person does not emigrate to an alien civilization to till a field on some backwardsass world unless they're being forced to. So I would say like all things it's kosher as long as it's in character, and if someone's acting out of character, shame on them and people will gang up on them. People gang up on bad guys anyway, at least the good guys. So there's already a dispute resolution system.

We can watch the score for obscene jumps in tech levels, and we can see opponent's treaty elements with other empires. So we'll instantly see if someone has a tech trading treaty. Soon everybody should have everybody else's comm channel, if everybody is trading comm channels as they should be in their own best interest.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-23 04:11pm

brianeyci wrote:...and we can see opponent's treaty elements with other empires. So we'll instantly see if someone has a tech trading treaty. Soon everybody should have everybody else's comm channel, if everybody is trading comm channels as they should be in their own best interest.

That's awesome. They really went all-out with SEV. That should solve most of our issues right there.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-23 04:23pm

Tech trading will happen, if only because it's possible and people will semantic whore out some little trick to do it. Not everybody playing is a SDN regular either.

But rather than make a big stink about it, most people know not to do it, and the few that do it should know that everybody else will gang up on them. The most humiliating thing is cheating and losing. Hopefully that stops anybody from tech trading, unless it's to slaves.

Tech trading is of course a totally seperate thing than tech stealing. Watch your colonizers!

.

Kingside_Bishop · Post by **Kingside_Bishop** » 2007-05-23 06:02pm

Well, I don't plan on tech trading, but I would be mildly opposed to the proposed "slave planet" and "anti-colony gifting" rules, but only mildly. I understand the arguments, but really love the roleplaying opportunities presented by colony trading and migration. If two races can live together peacefully, then it would make sense for them to do so on an intimate basis. As for colony trading -- I can see what you mean. As long as colony's could still be used in bargaining, I'd be alright with it. You know, Emire A gives Empire B three planets so Empire B doesn't invade... that sort of thing. Gifting of colonies just to circumvent the research of colony techs is rather cheap, I suppose.

But I just love having multiple races on my planets. It's so... cool.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-23 06:04pm

Multiple races on the same colony is fine... that's what I'm planning.

It's only the one race only on a planet, the race being one of your friends/allies instead of your own that worries me.

Kingside_Bishop · Post by **Kingside_Bishop** » 2007-05-23 06:13pm

I dunno... I think it makes enough sense, from a roleplay perspective. The two empires are so close, that some members of another empire would consider moving to the other empire, even swearing a new allegiance. I mean, they're independent individuals, and can do whatever they want. The empire could then ban immigration there for non-breathers, and export current non-breather residents, so that they could get more productivity from the planet.

It's not too much of a stretch, I don't think. Besides, that's largely the whole purpose behind immigration treaties. It's why they're so awesome. But, I am a newcomer to this game -- maybe it's a taboo I'm unaware of, eh? I was unaware of the taboo against tech trading, until I started poking around PBW.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2007-05-23 06:17pm

Kingside_Bishop wrote:I dunno... I think it makes enough sense, from a roleplay perspective. The two empires are so close, that some members of another empire would consider moving to the other empire, even swearing a new allegiance. I mean, they're independent individuals, and can do whatever they want. The empire could then ban immigration there for non-breathers, and export current non-breather residents, so that they could get more productivity from the planet.

It's not too much of a stretch, I don't think. Besides, that's largely the whole purpose behind immigration treaties. It's why they're so awesome. But, I am a newcomer to this game -- maybe it's a taboo I'm unaware of, eh? I was unaware of the taboo against tech trading, until I started poking around PBW.

It's really.. well. Trading tech and pop overcomes some of the hurdles the game is designed to have for fairness. Do you want to colonize gas giants? You should spend 15 turns researching it then. OR the effort and risk of stealing an enemy colony ship.

Want to breathe on a Hellplanet? Research atmosphere reprocessors. Etc.

Trading lets two parties get signifigantly ahead of others if they resort to this. It also allows really lame crap like each player researching one field then the other researches another, then they get traded, effectively doubling their research rate each. It makes the gamiest blocs too powerful.

Kingside_Bishop · Post by **Kingside_Bishop** » 2007-05-23 06:47pm

It's certainly sensible, I agree.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2007-05-23 07:34pm

I think we should either just ban immigration treaties/population trading or allow everybody to do it.

KB's correct in saying that there are feasible reasons why people would immigrate. After all, lots of people went to the then backwards ass New World from Europe for various reasons besides being forced to.

However, Neph is also correct in saying that it's cheap and makes the gamey blocs too powerful.

Brian's idea seems to be that the evil races doing it will be balanced by the good guys ganging up on the bad guys, but honestly how many straight edge good guys are in this? I'm not familar with many of the factions, but the galaxy doesn't seem to be exactly overflowing with the forces of virtue and light.. Hell, Brian's got the UFP and even he's taking a fair helping of grit with his RP.

Personally, I think we should just ban immigration. If you want someone else's breathers, I think you should have to go through the expense and dangers of forcefully conquering (or liberating, if you're a good guy) them.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-23 08:07pm

Trogdor wrote:Brian's idea seems to be that the evil races doing it will be balanced by the good guys ganging up on the bad guys, but honestly how many straight edge good guys are in this? I'm not familar with many of the factions, but the galaxy doesn't seem to be exactly overflowing with the forces of virtue and light.. Hell, Brian's got the UFP and even he's taking a fair helping of grit with his RP.

I've got the Hiigarans! How much good can you get? Maybe my next shipset will be like... I don't know, Jesus on a Unicorn that rides a Rainbow. Is that good enough for ya?!

Honestly though, I'm good guys! Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm no jerk! I wasn't a jerk in STMod either, even if I was playing the Cardassians. I enjoyed their innate hypocrisy almost as much as they do.

I wonder if there's a Heroic Space Navy suitable enough to be a force of Light and Happiness or whatever.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2007-05-23 08:34pm

I wrote:Brian's idea seems to be that the evil races doing it will be balanced by the good guys ganging up on the bad guys, but honestly how many straight edge good guys are in this? I'm not familar with many of the factions, but the galaxy doesn't seem to be exactly overflowing with the forces of virtue and light.. Hell, Brian's got the UFP and even he's taking a fair helping of grit with his RP.

I don't know who the Hiigarans are, Cov. Chill out.

Am I wrong about the bad guys outnumbering the good guys in this game?

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-23 08:37pm

Trogdor wrote:
I wrote:Brian's idea seems to be that the evil races doing it will be balanced by the good guys ganging up on the bad guys, but honestly how many straight edge good guys are in this? I'm not familar with many of the factions, but the galaxy doesn't seem to be exactly overflowing with the forces of virtue and light.. Hell, Brian's got the UFP and even he's taking a fair helping of grit with his RP.
I don't know who the Hiigarans are, Cov. Chill out.

Am I wrong about the bad guys outnumbering the good guys in this game?

Oh, I'm not angry! I'm... actually surprised! I thought you must have known? I was just joking, because the Hiigarans are the protagonists of the Homeworld 1 and 2 games, as well as Homeworld: Cataclysm, and they're supposed to be as good-guy as you can really get. The first game is really a retelling of Exodus with ion cannon frigates instead of, like, Moses.

So I was being sarcastic. I would have thought they would have been as common knowledge as anything within the genre of space games. No biggie.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2007-05-23 08:47pm

Ah, okay. Decided to err on the side of caution there. If you were angry I didn't want to take the chance of making you madder. Want to avoid drama, especially this early in the game.

Homeworld's one of those games that's been on my "to play" list for I don't know how long. Right now my space games experience is pretty much limited to various Trek and Wars games, GalCivII, Space Rangers II, and Starcraft, if that even counts. Oh, and Space Empires, but I guess that goes without saying.

Heh, it's funny. Most of my friends in RL regard me as this huge sci-fi geek, but compared to many at SDN I'm fairly ignorant of a lot of the genre. Either I'm a big fish in a little pond or a small fish in a big pond.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2007-05-23 09:39pm

The Davion Federation are good guys. I've learned that I'm pretty bad at being a bad guy.

And you're not alone in not knowing much about the Hiigarans, Trogs. I played a bit of Homeworld and can't even remember which faction I was playing, let alone make a moral judgement of them.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-05-23 10:11pm

Tech sharing via treaty was explicitly mentioned as disallowed in the game description, so that was already covered when the game started.

I don't personally have a problem with population migration via treaty. Even if it has the same effect, it's a basic part of the game, while gifting full population transports in SE IV was very gamey. Then again, it does make atmosphere converters rather useless, so if people want to ban it, I'll abide.

As for colony trading, I'd say it's OK in every circumstance except when it's used by two empires with mutually exclusive planet types (rock and ice, for instance) to colonize all the opposing planets in each other's territory and then gifting the planets. The unfairness of that tactic should be obvious to everyone, I think. I can't think of any real abuses for other types of colony trading. Gifting a few colonies to each other in order to define borders so that each empire won't have planets in the other's territory, for instance, is fine.

ColonialAdmiral · Post by **ColonialAdmiral** » 2007-05-23 10:19pm

My guys are good-ish... They are after all the forefathers of the human race. (Well in my little world anyway...

) That means half of the people in this game owe some kind of tribute to me...

I'm fine with banning population trades. However there is nothing you can do once you capture an enemy planet...That race will become part of your empire...And it will always reproduce. I'm not going to bother going to all my planets and scrapping a few million people. (Unless they're phong)

Kingside_Bishop · Post by **Kingside_Bishop** » 2007-05-23 11:03pm

The Rhak'Thrallan are good guys, just so long as you don't come anywhere near their homeworlds with a gun. Unless they trust you, of course.

darthkommandant · Post by **darthkommandant** » 2007-05-23 11:25pm

Though I am the Galactic Empire, I will only glass worlds during a major war where my survival is at stake not as a standard operating procedure. And no I'm not going to blindly conquer others either unless a good reason pops up such as an attack on my colonizers or fleets.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-05-23 11:32pm

I'll upload my turn in 30 minutes to an hour, got a few chores to do and don't want to rush it. Was SDN down between around 8 and 10 PM EST for anybody today?

As for banning migration, decide now. I've already made a treaty with someone with migration because it was a cool thing to do, and I also think that having multiple races in your empire is cool. It only becomes a problem if people micro out all the non-breathers in a world to make the world a breather in my opinion.

Being a "good guy" is a lot easier than it seems. For one, people don't like bad guys, they get a lot of bad rap. I think most people are actually good guys and the only ones I can name as lawful evil are the Romulans and the Ur-Quann. I don't see a single pure evil yet, not from the RP or the names.

ColonialAdmiral · Post by **ColonialAdmiral** » 2007-05-23 11:53pm

"Nobody's a Good Guy. There will always be someone to piss off."
~Me

I think that Migration treaties should be fine. It's just way to hard to enforce it you know?

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-05-23 11:55pm

Oh man, I love being evil! Like my Zerg.

I totally wanted to be the Vagyr. But I figured that doing the Hiigarans before the Vagyr would be easier (it was) and it would also capture a lot more attention (it did) because the Vagyr are really the bastard children of the series. Everyone who played them has an opinion about the Taiidani or the Kushan/Hiigarans... but few people really care much about the Vagyr. I really love the Vagyr. I love all sorts of 'advanced barbarian' spacefleets, and I think their art direction and Makaan himself are great. But almost nobody would know what I'm talking about, even if they played the game.

I'm a good guy by nature, but I love beeeeeing eeeeevil. It's just a bit harder to make a good villianous species without it being an iteration of Mordor in Space. Not a terrible idea overall, but then you still gotta find the ships.

My first desire was for a Ork shipset. But trying to make one of those is annoying. Nobody's ever made a HW2 Battlefleet Gothic mod, and I don't know how to properly map UV's. I'm an animator, not much of a texturer. I could do some really, really basic Orky ships, but it'd hard to figure out. It's why I decided to rip them instead.

But I'd love to be evil. Evil is fun! It's so delicious to be a wonderful, reeking evil, and be conniving. Being diplomatic and evil is fun in a Palpatine sort of way, but it's also fun to be the massive ravaging horde. However, that requires massive ravaging horde power. And since we have no "Nomads" patch yet, I can't roll into someone's system and pillage it. It's hard to be an evil Space Viking when someone can go nuke my planet afterwards.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2007-05-24 01:52am

brianeyci wrote:I don't see a single pure evil yet, not from the RP or the names.

Star Empire of France.

If that's not evil I don't know what evil is.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2007-05-24 01:19pm

I'm actually trying to set up the Ur-Quan so that they can go either way in the RP. New Sentient Milieu or modified Path of Now and Forever.

Anyway, I've been doing a one player game with the balance mod and had migration treaties with other empires. I was surprised to note that there was actually little migration. The other empire's people only showed up up on a couple of worlds they could breathe on. If you've got a fair sized empire, it'll take some doing to make red worlds green even with migration.

In any case, I'm not about to raise a stink over it.