Ideas for imperium games

[Horist]

I didnt even know there was a die based imperium already done! I might go play that one. I am way down for another Imperium as well

[Horist]

Has anyone mentioned a no-research psilon game? All tech must be acquired through theft, trades or invasions. Without ever having to spend on research you will have a fleet that rivals most ai in size, though not tech. Also no more than 2-4 clicks of spying per race to not turn this into a spy fest

Im thinking average or hard difficulty and a small or normal map due to the difficulties these restrictions can impose
We can add other varients in as well like no missile bases and no threatening and asking ai to declare war

[Catwalk]

Variation on the no-research game:

- Bulrathi
- The player may research one technology every 20 turns (if you haven't researched any the first 60 turns you're allowed to research 3)
- No tech trading
- Hard difficulty
- Medium galaxy
- 5 opponents
- Whoever defeats all 5 rivals the fastest is declared the winner

Suggesting Bulrathi in order to encourage warfare, also because their Computer weakness doesn't matter in this game so they can spy just as well as anyone else. Darloks also an option, depending on what we want to focus on.

[Horist]

Through trickle research, isn't once every 20 turns less than I would get anyways?
What about only picking 1 field to research all game? Players choice? We see what everyone chooses? Planetology/Weapons off limits. Bulrathi hard sounds great.

[Catwalk]

Even with trickle research you can easily research multiple fields at a time. I'd say 1 tech every 10 turns is more likely. We could raise it to 25, though. How about that + Darloks/Hard? With only one field available I think everybody would have to choose Propulation, as not getting any range techs would be incredibly crippling. Especially for Bulrathi who rely on ground invasions.

Another advantage to this is that it creates an interesting tradeoff between going for expensive technologies vs backfilling cheap but useful technologies. It'd probably be a good idea to reveal the tech tree to the players before the start, given the restrictions.

[Catwalk]

Just did a test run on the above variant, and it was quite entertaining. I got contact with two races fairly early on, and early espionage attempts worked out well. The research restriction is very severe with the 25t rule, limits you to the bare necessities.

One addition to the rules: During Final War, full research is allowed. This even gives you an incentive to trigger final war, as well as being able to steal more stuff since the AI shares all techs. I was at constant war with everyone anyway, so it didn't change the defensive situation much.

[Catwalk]

Another idea for a research restricted game could be Dirty Psilons: No Planetology research! No hostile colonization, no terraforming and no super cleanup techs. You can still get these from your enemies of course, but tech trading will be off. This would strongly encourage us to play super aggressive Psilons, since massive expansion will be less profitable without Planetology and our ace in the hole can be put to good use getting either awesome ships or super sneaky spies.

Anyone interested in either of these suggestions? Quite a few have been tossed up by now.

[Horist]

I am way down for anything. Thanks for the liveliness Catwalk

[Catwalk]

Small change: No Planetology with Meklar. This is probably easier than the Psilon variant, as Psilons are mostly unable to convert their research advantage into an economic advantage. Furthermore, Meklars have a decisive advantage in Computers (important for espionage and robotic controls, one of the few ways to boost your economy) and a weakness in Planetology (restricted) whereas Psilons have an all-round advantage. As with psilons, my test run gave many incentives for playing an aggressive game (tilted more towards Espionage) as a means of improving your economy.

[Horist]

Instead of no planetology, how about a varient where we have a fixed tech sliders. Example below, but really anything could work.
30 clicks on construction:
5 clicks on propulsion
2 clicks on computers
1 click on ff
1 click on planetology
1 click on weapons

I could playtest a few maps to ensure there are enough range 3 planets...