STGOD: A Dead Art? (II)

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

I can just imagine it now. Admiral Hirano on the bridge of the Suzumiya, blasting "Hare Hare Yukai" over the comm channels as her fleet spreads literal sunny sunny fun in the form of a thermonuclear missile barrage.

Three months is too short of a build-up time for the apocalypse. All I ask is one in-game year to build up fleets and defenses, with a point allotment to match. Once we're done blowing our wads on capships, we set off on the highway to hell and laugh maniacally as we nuke ourselves into oblivion.

[Academia Nut]

By the way, Academia Nut, I see your KISS Army, and I raise it by an SOS Brigade. You can guess at what kind of faction I'll be playing this time around.

Somehow I think there is a possibility of our nations grouping together for the greater awesome

And I suppose if we want to go out in a suicidal blaze of glory, I will admit that I was planning to attack the Kitaka with everything I had once I had a good reason to know that they had betrayed their allies, what with the way I wrote my species psychology weighing loyalty above all other factors. I suppose we could say that after the Battle of the Backstab my guys went nuts and that destabilized the entire region, resulting in the NGTO and CoN squaring off against one another. We could then play out the last days of the war, with all other factions annihilated in the ensuing malestrom of violence, neutrals being shot along with enemies for fear that they will pick a side. There is then one last genocidal push by the remaining factions and... fade to black.

Now I'm all for simply starting a brand new universe where we can have humans and humanoids, but no one knows or cares where they came from. Or... or if we really want to get crazy, we could have feuding divine pantheons in a WWI level steampunk fantasy world with bolt action rifles and wands, engineers and artificers (that actually would make a cool name when I think about it), and deities of technology warring with their more traditional counterparts. It would be completely insane, but it also has the opportunity for extreme awesome. The fall of an empire bit might be a bit trickier to work in, but really, I've just been throwing out suggestions. This is the second best part of a STGOD (the first being watching your enemies driven before you and hearing the lamentations of their women): the coming together as a group and somehow welding different ideas together into a cohesive whole.

[Dark Hellion]

Defend earth? Hell, this is the Jihad my robots have waited for. All will burn away leaving only the heartiest survivors to build. One day, they will have the glory of dying to the Xylyx. How could any intelligent species want more than to be burned out of existence by the Gods themselves.

Let us make the Heavens quake I say.

To Terra. To Mayhem. To War.

Everything you have ever known will come to end. The Heralds battlefleet will move. There is no Mercy, there is no Compassion, there is no Hatred awaiting you. There is only death. Cower puny biologicals, cower. We come, and when we leave, you will not exist within this universe any longer.


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! (5 exclamation points, truly the mark of a deranged mind)

[Starglider]

Three months is too short of a build-up time for the apocalypse. All I ask is one in-game year to build up fleets and defenses, with a point allotment to match. Once we're done blowing our wads on capships, we set off on the highway to hell and laugh maniacally as we nuke ourselves into oblivion.

Bleh, points, just double your existing fleet size. I don't think game mechanics are going to matter too much for this one. Personally I'll take six extra planet killers, to spread the fun.

[Noble Ire]

I'd be willing to take part in a new game, whatever setting it ends up being in. I have a patently "Evil" faction sitting on the back-burner, in the event that we decide to go for a "the galaxies are burning" setting.

[Starglider]

Does that bring us up to a huge 6 vs 6 battle then? With Hotfoot playing relativistic asteroid dodgeball with our ships for extra LOLZ?

EDIT: guess not...

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Armageddon Roster

STRIKE FORCE GEOCIDE
Starglider
A-Wing
DarkEvilMe
Covenant?
Academia Nut?
Noble Ire?

DEFENCE FORCE TERRA ULTIMA
Dahak
Hawkwings?
Tanasinn?
Shinn Langley Soryu?
Adrian Laguna??

Lone Wolf Suicidal Crazies
Sir Nitram?
Dark Hellion!!!!!

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Three months is too short of a build-up time for the apocalypse. All I ask is one in-game year to build up fleets and defenses, with a point allotment to match. Once we're done blowing our wads on capships, we set off on the highway to hell and laugh maniacally as we nuke ourselves into oblivion.

Bleh, points, just double your existing fleet size. I don't think game mechanics are going to matter too much for this one. Personally I'll take six extra planet killers, to spread the fun.

You, my friend, are definitely speaking my language.

If we're going to just toss the mechanics and go whole hog, I'm gonna order up several Suzumiyas, several assloads of Sabers, Kurosakis, Aznables, and Lees, the Konata Izumi prototypes, and a few planet-killers I'd like to dub "Mikuru Beams."

Why bother with the rocks when everyone has the means with which to BDZ their enemies?

[Academia Nut]

Hmmm... I'll probably slug it out with Dark Hellion rather than at Earth, let Nitram join up with Task Force Genocide, if only in that I think he really wants to pull a legal "Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies" on the planet that was the major contributing factor to the derailment of the game. This of course presumes that Beowolf doesn't show up, in which case I call first dibs for pounding on the Kitaka.

Hmmm... a couple more Halcornath dreadnoughts and maybe a couple "Wrath of the Gods" bombs would be nice.

Do you think we all have the creative time and energy to work on constructing the new game while gleefully slaughtering one another in the end of this one?

And what, no commentary on my Engineers and Artificers suggestion? Not even a "you're nuts and that's unworkable"? *goes and hides in a corner and listens to Linkin Park*

[Dark Hellion]

So, can I buy thousands of hyperdrive equipped rocks? Seems suitably sterile and mechanical for my liking.

[Starglider]

I'm writing a post right now that starts with '10 months later...' and has the Kiroter'nah main strike fleet heading for earth. A third of my named characters have already died, the NGTO conference world got carpet nuked and the Kiroter'nah have lost several colonies. 75% of available ships (and the factories have been ignoring all safety regulations and cannibalising all civilian infrastructure to crank them out) are heading directly for earth. Anyone who wants to join the strike or try and stop it, feel free to post next.

P.S. I'm bringing the Atomsk and an honour guard of survivors that managed to blast their way out of Blackmast before it fell to CON forces. Because that ship was too cool not to see combat, and I've had some practice playing the pirates now.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

We can generate the creative energy to rebuild the world when we're busy destroying it.

Engineers and Artificers does sound like a good idea. We can integrate it with the idea of the fallen empire we were passing around earlier with ease.

[Academia Nut]

If you're willing to lose a lot of them pointlessly to interdiction, go for it. Earth is probably too well defended to crack with that sort of thing, and of course your rocks are offensive only so the other guys uber fleets can still get revenge.

And I am strangely struck by the sick desire to have my last ship crash uncontrolled into the wasteland remains of Africa as so to bring the end to my race in the manner of activity they were, tragically, most noted for.

Sometime within the next day or two I might write up a post about my space blobs sending the last of their fleet for Herald space, our worlds devastated and gone, this a last act of revenge against the species we see as the greatest threat in the galaxy.

[Noble Ire]

I'd be more than happy to have the FEA lend its remaining forces to a last charge towards Earth. I've been waiting a long time to have my supercarriers see some action; having all of them in the same titanic engagement would be most gratifying.

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, I have so been waiting to fire my starfire cannons and use my anti-ship hellfire missiles.

We seem to have two different threads going on in here, one being the planning for the apocalyptic end of the Dead Artists Society, the other being brainstorming and such for a new STGOD. Perhaps we should spin off a new thread to handle the new game while we cackle psychotically at our plans for the end of the old game.

[Starglider]

I'd be more than happy to have the FEA lend its remaining forces to a last charge towards Earth. I've been waiting a long time to have my supercarriers see some action; having all of them in the same titanic engagement would be most gratifying.

Beowulf IMed me to say that he's still in the game. So I guess you'll be fighting him and Laguna in a Grand Battle for the Galactic North? Want to join that and make it 2 vs 2 Academia Nut?

Don't worry. The rest of us so-called xeno scum will take out the human cancer, even if we have to sacrifice every last ship to do it.

[Noble Ire]

I'd be more than happy to have the FEA lend its remaining forces to a last charge towards Earth. I've been waiting a long time to have my supercarriers see some action; having all of them in the same titanic engagement would be most gratifying.

Beowulf IMed me to say that he's still in the game. So I guess you'll be fighting him and Laguna in a Grand Battle for the Galactic North? Want to join that and make it 2 vs 2 Academia Nut?

That would work, too (ignore that last bit of my IM). I'm just eager to get back into the game.

[Hotfoot]

A few things:

A. I don't really have any interest in a gathering of gods. It has the potential to get exceptionally silly for numerous reasons.

B. Pick if we're going to continue with the existing STGOD or make a new one. There's no reason to have an orgy of senseless violence to end this one other than to have a giant TGODing dickwaving contest. If we continue, we either pick up pretty much where we left off or go "x months later". Anything beyond that, and we might as well start a new STGOD.

C. If we're going to start a new one, there should be a codified history that people would have to adhere to when creating nations so we can prevent any "nuh-uh, this is what happened" crap.

D. Covenant, stow it. Humans and near humans are fine. If you want to wax poetic about "Real Aliens", you can make your own threads in OSF and FF. People calling human or near-human races has NOTHING to do with the quality of the game. The problem we had here was that multiple nations shared a homeworld and DIDN'T want to murder each other. Remove that from the equation, and suddenly things run a lot smoother. It's really damn easy to divide people who aren't cohabitating the cradle of their respective civilizations. The real danger comes from everyone playing an idealized civilization, in which everything is perfect and the governments always do what's best.

[Academia Nut]

Of the choice between continuing this STGOD and starting a new one, I vote for a new one. No matter what way we slice it, we're going to have a lot of dead weight and silly things to try and reconcile the loss of so many major powers. Better just to start fresh.

Now, the whole gods thing was just a suggestion, and I was definitely thinking that if we did something like that it would be along the line of the Dominions series were the gods are more along the lines of really powerful and really important units, and that one god doesn't have dick all power in another god's territory unless they get close enough to actually slug it out deus a deus. But yeah, I was just throwing things out, it does have the potential to get really silly really quickly.

Okay, since I suggested it, how about this? We have a quick show of hands. We either continue on with Dead Artists Society, or I go and start a new thread titled STGOD: Engineers and Artifice featuring a steampunkish science meets magic world with a dying empire beset on all sides, including within, by forces vying to tear it down. How does that sound? Because so far Hotfoot, you're the only one to object at all to any part of my ideas, and I've heard at least one "Yes" voice so far.

[Starglider]

I'm up for nuking the DAS with an orgy of TGODing. I don't care if killjoys think it's pointless. They don't have to participate. I would continue it normally if everyone else was interested in doing so, but I don't think we have enough players interested to do so. Plus frankly it would be good to have a game actually finnished, even if it is by sudden death mode.

I'd have to come up with a new power for a steampunk setting, and presumably you're going to have to invent a world, history, technomagical base plus all new game mechanics, plus setting up the modding to handle this empire. I definitely won't be able to get involved with that while also blowing up the old game. But I suspect it's going to take you two months to get a new game set up anyway, so maybe I'll come in by the time you're ready to start.

[Hotfoot]

Steampunk and magic can work, but to be blunt I've yet to see a fantasy-themed STGOD make it off the ground. Not saying it can't, mind you, but for some reason it didn't seem to have the same draw for some reason.

The existing STGOD can conceivably be salvaged, but I can definitely see the reasons people wouldn't want to in favor of a new STGOD. The question after that is what would people want to play.

As far as a central power run by "mods", it might seem like a good idea, but I don't think it would end well. Maybe as a part of the backstory, that would be fine, but otherwise I'm not so sure that would work out well. Especially when you get into areas of disputes. That situation is begging to turn into players vs. mods in a very real sense. Remember, mods should facilitate the game, not be an obstacle in it.

If the game is set AFTER the empire has been toppled, then it would work much better, as at that point people are squabbling over the spoils of the empire, they enter into alliances of convenience, make plays for power, etc. Much more condusive towards an STGOD setting.

Another such thing we may want to consider is the following:
Make a map prior to starting the game with possible notes for areas of interest, like locations of Imperial Datacaches, mineral rich areas, etc. that are worth fighting over, to add incentives to go to war and such. Having the players start out as desperate and weakened from an extended war would be an interesting way of kicking things off.

[Academia Nut]

Okay, I'm off for the night, I'll see what bubbles forth over the next couple of hours, and if there is a consensus (or at least no strong opposition) I'll post some stuff in the morning and those who are interested can start building a new world. I do promise however that we can definitely cram just about anything into the world I have in mind. Maybe we can beat this fantasy STGOD curse. If not, a new space one is also cool.

Goodnight y'all!

[Starglider]

Steampunk and magic can work, but to be blunt I've yet to see a fantasy-themed STGOD make it off the ground.

Also being blunt, land combat is much more complicated than ship-to-ship combat. The logistics are worse, there are a lot more unit types, it's very easy to get bogged down in minutae, quantifying unit abilities is harder, tracking movement is harder. In space games land invasions are essentially a diversion where one side usually has overwhelming concentration of forces, and that's good.

If you're making a steampunk game, I'd suggest setting it on a planet which is basically a huge archipelago. You can travel around in fleets of ironclads, with biplanes doing scouting and either steam flamethrower tanks or steam mecha (depending on whether you are a card-carrying HAB member) taking islands. Rather than having to keep track of battle fronts across huge continents, it will basically come down to who possesses what islands at any give time. This will likely make keeping the map up to date much easier.

[Beowulf]

Beowolf won't be showing up. I probably will be though. I think double existing fleet size sounds good. Of course, I'm wondering why you want to pound the Kitaka, given we've done nothing to you.

Engineers and artificers sounds pretty interesting.

[Hotfoot]

Beowolf won't be showing up. I probably will be though.

....What?

[Adrian Laguna]

If you're making a steampunk game, I'd suggest setting it on a planet which is basically a huge archipelago. You can travel around in fleets of ironclads, with biplanes doing scouting and either steam flamethrower tanks or steam mecha (depending on whether you are a card-carrying HAB member) taking islands.

I was thinking similar. Have a world that's chains and chains of archipelagos rather than continents, that way naval power is the most important part of the game. Though note that it would be Infantry doing the island taking, she's still Queen of War, you know.

Given the choice between steampunk on one a planet and something sci-fi(ish), I'd got for the latter. Still both ideas would be neat.