Ideas for imperium games

[RefSteel]

There are lots of good ideas here, and if anyone wants to sponsor an Imperium ("sponsoring" just means what I usually do: Rolling up a map, copying the starting save somewhere where it won't be overwritten, playtesting enough to make sure it's a good map for the concept, and writing up the scenario) please feel free to send me an e-mail or PM about it! In the meantime, I'm going to try to put something together by Monday based on a promising idea I saw in one of these threads.

I'll also second Sullla's advice; though there's definitely a place for complicated variants, they usually work better for Succession Games (where each player has a short turn-set to play) than for an Imperium, where you're playing the whole game on your own and checking a complicated ruleset can be immersion-breaking.

That said, there's no reason you can't propose a succession game and see how many takers you get ... or you could make up a complex variant that you can keep track of yourself, play it out on a random map, and report on it here anyway! For that matter, as in Zygot's shadow game, you could add (and report) an additional variant to your own playthrough of an Imperium game that seems like it would otherwise be too gentle for your tastes.

[Nad]

@ Sulla / Ref
Your right, simplicity has its own beauty. I just wanted to make sure that the Imperia series continues and ignite a new discussion. Additionally I would like to pull more newbies into the challenge. BTW, do you have any idea where the rest of the old Imperia gang (codehappy and al) is hiding? Your and their reports were quite teaching...

I am desperately awaiting the next game!

[flugauto]

Was there a One Planet Challenge game?

[Nad]

Excellent idea, but you may have a look at the past Imperia:

Imperia 27 - Meklon 1PE

[flugauto]

It was a Small map Hard difficulty game, how about a Large map Normal difficulty? Or an Easy difficulty if Normal is too much?

[Vanshilar]

Have there been any Imperia that alter the position of the stars? I'm thinking of something like a donut layout or something. I've played another space game before where you could adjust the shape of the galaxy and the donut shape tended to be more challenging than the other shapes (because the player needs to worry about the short term to take care of his immediate neighbors, but in the meantime the guys farthest away are busy building up their econ i.e. a long term strategy would work better against them), although I don't know how well that would translate into MoO. I supposed you could also take a large map and make the central stars all into asteroids, except then that affects when the council would occur.

[RefSteel]

It was a Small map Hard difficulty game, how about a Large map Normal difficulty? Or an Easy difficulty if Normal is too much?

I think the logistics of glassing an entire Large galaxy would become too tedius before long. A variation might be interesting though. Is there interest in an Imperium with a specific goal other than in-game victory?

Have there been any Imperia that alter the position of the stars? I'm thinking of something like a donut layout or something. I've played another space game before where you could adjust the shape of the galaxy and the donut shape tended to be more challenging than the other shapes (because the player needs to worry about the short term to take care of his immediate neighbors, but in the meantime the guys farthest away are busy building up their econ i.e. a long term strategy would work better against them), although I don't know how well that would translate into MoO. I supposed you could also take a large map and make the central stars all into asteroids, except then that affects when the council would occur.

There has never been such an Imperium as far as I know (though I don't know the details of how the map was edited way back in Imperium 2). I know it is possible to move stars around on the map, but there are some limitations (for instance, the overall scale of the map does not change) and I'm not yet sure of how their new location is determined. If I have time, I'll try to work this out and come up with a script to turn a regular map into a "donut". I don't think the AI will handle this kind of map well, but it's worth a try!

Note that (unless something goes terribly wrong between now and then) Imperium 37 will NOT include any map or tech tree edits of any kind - and opens this coming Monday!

[Zieman]

and I'm not yet sure of how their new location is determined. If I have time, I'll try to work this out and come up with a script to turn a regular map into a "donut". I don't think the AI will handle this kind of map well, but it's worth a try!

You could hack your script to move stars out of the center area (and corners), and then move Orion to exact center of the map manually? Or do the whole stuff by hand with maped or even by hex editing the coordinates.
Nothing new here, I bet

Note that (unless something goes terribly wrong between now and then) Imperium 37 will NOT include any map or tech tree edits of any kind - and opens this coming Monday!

Aww, almost a perfect birthdaypresent for me - the 0.1% of unperfectness comes from the fact that I will turn 38 on Sunday, not 37 on Monday .

[toddestan]

I don't know what the limits of editing the map are, but I wonder if it is possible to put the entire galaxy into a nebula? Could make for interesting (or possibly infuriating) game where you have no planetary shields and everyone moves at warp 1 (until Stargates).

[RefSteel]

You could hack your script to move stars out of the center area (and corners), and then move Orion to exact center of the map manually? Or do the whole stuff by hand with maped or even by hex editing the coordinates.
Nothing new here, I bet

I could modify the script (see below) to also move Orion to the center of the galaxy instead of leaving it in the donut with the other stars, sure. Unless there's special demand for that (and the idea looks fun overall) I'll just leave it as-is for now though.

Aww, almost a perfect birthdaypresent for me - the 0.1% of unperfectness comes from the fact that I will turn 38 on Sunday, not 37 on Monday .

Happy Birthday (in advance) then! Gotta love the almost-but-not-quite-perfect serendipity.

I don't know what the limits of editing the map are, but I wonder if it is possible to put the entire galaxy into a nebula? Could make for interesting (or possibly infuriating) game where you have no planetary shields and everyone moves at warp 1 (until Stargates).

I think this can be done (although as you note, I'm not sure if we'd WANT to!) but it would take some experimentation. I'll probably do the latter anyway if the ring maps turn out to be fun though (in order to get their nebulae working correctly).