STGOD 2k8 Planning thread

[A-Wing_Slash]

Two thoughts:

I'm not really sold on this whole war footing thing, but if mods and people are for it, and it prevents bangbussing (bangbusing?) then fine. I would like to propose that those nations that declare themselves as Agressors, and get the 200pt bonus, be allowed to start in a full war footing, so as to promote early conflict.

In general, I think we need to make a concious effort to make production turns come faster. For people to be willing to risk their ships and try for more production points, they have to be able to build those ships back, and those captured planets have to be worth something. The last game, while it did not last long, lasted for a while, yet without a single production turn having passed. Also, if we are going to enforce a turn or two interlude between warmongering, we can't have it drag on forever.

[Academia Nut]

I figure each production turn should last a month. With a radius of the former empire of about one to two weeks, this would mean that a single production time would represent the travel time required from one side to the next, which will mean that the turns should go quickly.

So I strongly support 1 month production turns.

[Tanasinn]

Just thought I should chime in on the "forced war footing" thing; I definitely don't like it, especially since many players have pledged to be immediately aggressive.

Question here: if we're totally conquered, instead of immediately spawning a new nation, can we play a resistance? Pirate or partisan fleets, for example?

[Hawkwings]

If we have war production different from peacetime production, and aggressors get to start on war footing immediately, I don't think they need the aggressor bonus.

[Dahak]

Shouldn't we actually think about starting...somewhere this year?
It is all fine and dandy to discuss all things down to the tiniest detail, but not everything is absolutely necessary RIGHT NOW.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Agreed, and more importantly a M<AP must be randomly assinged, The Kushawni needs to know who it shall be invading, eh "annexing" when it starts

[A-Wing_Slash]

If we have war production different from peacetime production, and aggressors get to start on war footing immediately, I don't think they need the aggressor bonus.

I think it would be much better to keep the agressor bonus, and just get rid of this whole war footing nonsense. I'd be surprised if there was a single polity in this universe that didn't go to a full war footing the moment they heard about Earth. I also don't think we need this extra system at all, and feel it would add a whole lot of complexity and delay without giving the game anything in return.

[Hawkwings]

Ahh!!! Too many undefined things! Unless we want to lose everyone, we need to quickly make a decision about some things:

Setting: what's up with the just-proposed multi-galactic setting. Was that even serious?

Ships vs fleets: This is a non-issue, let's drop it! People can RP their 10 pts being a single ship or 50 zillion ships.

Points: How many of each kind?

Racial points: Need a list of things that we can spend it on. A finalized list.

Planets: what are the limits, regarding multiple planets in 1 system?

[Covenant]

The multi-galactic setting wasn't serious. I was just saying "If people want epic, why not do epic?"

[Covenant]

Ahh!!! Too many undefined things! Unless we want to lose everyone, we need to quickly make a decision about some things:

I already posted but I'll post again, cuz I might have some useful replies.

Setting: what's up with the just-proposed multi-galactic setting. Was that even serious?

As stated, no, not serious. Just a statement of "If people want epic, why not do an epic setting?" Don't consider it a possibility.

Ships vs fleets: This is a non-issue, let's drop it! People can RP their 10 pts being a single ship or 50 zillion ships.

Yes, I think so too. For those who want fleets of ships, they can do fleets of ships. People who want small fleets of megaships will just do so anyway.

Points: How many of each kind?

2000 points for shipbuilding, 500 for racials. Aggressor nations get a coupon for 200 points of ships to use as a first-strike force, and can send some of their 2000 point fleet along with it--but cannot keep the 200 point fleet at home.

Racial points: Need a list of things that we can spend it on. A finalized list.

I can't help you there, but I can propose one later. Basically just a compliation of Nut's and a few other ideas based on attributes already in-play.

Planets: what are the limits, regarding multiple planets in 1 system?

Planets can't fire at each other, and planetary bonuses don't stack in-system, so you can't have 5 planets with 100 point intel networks to make a 500 point intel network or something ridiculous (if we have intel networks or whatever). I don't see why we couldn't lump them up some.

How about no more than 250 points of production per system? That requires people to make at least 8 systems in their holdings. Sol would be a very productive system, probably worth at least 500 if you were exploiting the whole thing. Divide it up as you wish amongst planets, but no system would provide more than that as a general rule (there could be exceptions as always).

[Dark Hellion]

I would like to suggest that we all at least have our fluff up by the weekend, and then we could slow role into the game by setting our random start positions and doing the pregame bickering to establish the political setting. No actions allowed at all, just a bit of time for all the nations to get their public information out, establish previous bad blood/ friendly relations, work out coordinations of some of the first turn moves, etc. and also allowing everyone to get their OoBs all hunky dory and the rules finalized. Then we have opening day, with fireworks and nukes.

[Darkevilme]

Agreed, lets get this show on the road. I've already got my OOB to the point of fluff padding and minor corrections now.

What does anyone else think of combining assimilation and ground combat bonuses into a racial planetary conquest bonus.

I mean both apply to different parts of the process that happens between the conquerer's boots hitting planetside and the planet becoming a productive part of the conquestadors empire. So why not just have planetary conquest as a how quickly you turn planets into a productive part of your empire from the word go with distinctions for methods such as Spartan-II's, propaganda, nerve stapling and hypnotic waves left mainly to the rpers.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Someone start the main game so I can blow stuff up already!

[Academia Nut]

Basically, all we need at this point is for the map to be made and the people who are ready can get going while everyone else catches up rather quickly. We have ship/fleet generation completed, and we have most of the racial attributes figured out, some more than others, they're just scattered about and can be consolidated in the wiki.

So yeah, if we figure out where we are in relation to one another we can begin plotting and scheming and blowing stuff up.

[Hawkwings]

What does anyone else think of combining assimilation and ground combat bonuses into a racial planetary conquest bonus.

I mean both apply to different parts of the process that happens between the conquerer's boots hitting planetside and the planet becoming a productive part of the conquestadors empire. So why not just have planetary conquest as a how quickly you turn planets into a productive part of your empire from the word go with distinctions for methods such as Spartan-II's, propaganda, nerve stapling and hypnotic waves left mainly to the rpers.

I'm against this. As shown by someone's example earlier, grouping these together would give a 4x total effectiveness to ground troops for 100 points.

[Darkevilme]

It depends on which rules are used in the end for ground combat and planetary warfare, and we're nowhere near the end on that nor likely to be for a while. So basically its my placeholder for when those rules are finalized sometime in the distant future.

[Covenant]

I honestly doubt we'll see much ground combat in the first months, if any. We can start before we finalize those rules, so long as people agree to debate it out rather than rely on rules if you do choose to invade.

The rules are really just the Last Impartial Voice, not an ideal way to play the game. It's somewhat antiseptic to play in pure wargame fashion, and takes away some of the strategy of trying of going fishing for an equal deal. Someone can fight a war, but make deals with their enemy, that makes them a lot better off than if they had fought it using pure rules.

Relying on rules should really enforce the Harshest Possible Reality, so that people use it as a worst case "both sides get their asses handed" sort of thing. It's a disincentive to become Mr. Rulesman--nobody will barter with you much if you're that much of a stickler, and you end up getting attrited to death by people who are playing the game more properly, and having just as much fun.

[Tanasinn]

I'm a bit behind on posting my OOB, but I'm still in the game. College interference, y'know?

[Covenant]

I'm behind too.

I was actually thinking of being a Xeno presence of ghost ships and strange spatial anomolies. A species that got nearly entirely obliterated in a cursory Imperial exterminatus-type thing, and failed to properly ascend the way Nitram's dudes can do (based on his fluff) and now use robots as puppets to get things done--quite embarassing.

[Covenant]

Oh, also, would some other people like to add mechanics to the handbook I started? Or new sections, or anything? It's not -mine- alone and I am not sole arbiter of STGOD rulesets, I'm just putting down some of the stuff into the wiki for the ease of people. Feel free to page me, make notes here, or use the discussion page there if you wanna add stuff. Like I haven't added the point totals (we going with 2000?) to it yet or the ideas about... uh, actually I don't think I have any space combat info yet at all. I'm busy doing stuff too so I haven't had tons of time.

Just wanted people to make sure they contributed. I'm partial to my ideas, but I'm trying not to include stuff that's really speculative or controversial (like my ground combat stuff) because it's not even an unoffical rule yet.

This applies to Nitram and Hotfoot too--the wiki article is easy and hotlink too, but it's lower-level canon than our game Rules thread here on-board. If you're concerned about looking too heavy-handed, commenting (even as an anon) to the discussion page of it would be appropriate.

And how would people feel about splitting the article up into several articles? Makes it a bit easier to hotlink to.

I think I'll definately make a page for 'Optional Unoffical Mechanics' where I can expand on some ideas and make things a bit cleaner for us. I'd also like to generalize the rules more, or offer a FTGOD conversion package--or at least a section that explains how to reinterpert stats and such for a fantasy game.

I also made a new Catagory for TGOD Games to fit all this stuff under for the Wiki. But I don't know any of the history of TGOD games, of STGOD or FTGOD games in specific. Those should get unstubbied by people who know the backstory and what the word means, if anything.

[Academia Nut]

I'll try and throw up the attributes sometime today, but I'm currently suffering from Final Exam Exhaustion and Studying syndrome.

EDIT: The Wiki has been updated

[Academia Nut]

Okay, I don't have a lot of strenuous things to do over the next few days, so if no one minds, I can make up a simple hex map and then randomly distribute people. If I were to do this, I would just generate some random numbers (probably just with simple dice rolling) and then plunk nations down according to a coordinate system, with appropriate skews for barbarians. This would let us do at least some pregame scheming and we could get the ball rolling a bit more.

If the mods would prefer to do this themselves, then understood, I just figured that since it was quiet I would volunteer my services.

[Hawkwings]

Sounds fine by me. Will you be doing 3 dimensions or 2?

[Academia Nut]

I figure 2-D, if unrealistic, will be less of a pain in the ass to manage, although if there is demand for it I can easily add in a third dimension.

[Hawkwings]

2-D will work just fine I think. People seem to have trouble thinking in 3-D, and while that may be an advantage for some, it's a real pain for others.

I made some edits to the wiki, in section 5. I'll be adding more to that soon.