Imperium 42 - Zygot

[Zygot]

My early game involved researching Range 4 and quickly settling the nearby habitable planets.  The Darloks got the "6 star systems" announcement in 2342.

I met the Meklars in 2351 when they settled Tao, the Ultra Poor world to my northeast.  They also had a strong 6 star system opening.  Because I expected poor relations and conflict with the rest of galaxy, I buddied up to the Meklars with a large trade agreement; 15 years later we signed a non-aggression pact.  I hoped to use them as a partner against my enemies, good for wartime distraction and a vote bloc in my favor.



In the period from 2357 to 2366 I met the Darloks and also the Sakkras, who pulled the old "let's declare war two turns after meeting you" maneuver.  I was getting concerned with the diplomatic situation and what I assumed was an imminent first Council meeting.

Sure enough, in 2370 the Meklars broke our non-agression pact, and the interturn continued to the Council with the Darloks and myself as the nominees.  The voting went like this:

Darloks voted for themselves - 5
Sakkra voted against me because of war - 2
Alkari were allied with the Darloks - 3
Meklar were allied with the Darloks - 4
Klackons abstained - 2



I had 5 votes, but it was 14/21 in favor of the Darloks.  What a bummer.  I hadn't met the Alkari or Klackons so I had no opportunity for diplomatic influence with them.  The Sakkra and Meklar votes were locked in with war and alliance, respectively.  And of course the Darloks voted for themselves.

In retrospect I could possibly have created a different Council result by persuading the Darloks or Meklars to break an alliance or declare war, and I should have at least tried that in the 2366-2370 period.  But I didn't, and frankly it was unlikely to happen anyway.  Too bad, I was excited for this game.

Here's my situation at the end, in 2370:











Thanks to thrawn and RefSteel for getting this going!

[RefSteel]

Argh, another loss in the first Council vote! That can be very hard to anticipate, and of course the cats have a lot of trouble making friends, especially in this galaxy. Counting on the friendship of an erratic ruler can be dangerous of course, but there weren't a lot of good options for the cats in a galaxy like this one.... Good luck in the next event - it was great to see another report from you!

[Ianus]

We could add some sort of scoring penalty for each reload, or require a reload 25 years back to allow time to fix the diplo mistake, or both... it does seem to go against the spirit of Realms Beyond though. Let's see what Ref thinks.

[RefSteel]

Any individual Imperium can have special rules of its own that override the usual set. We could even do some kind of Galaxy Quest theme with an "Omega-13 device." I should note that in GalCiv2, apparently it was standard for players to be allowed one reload for some reason (Sirian makes use of this in a game he linked in the "Runaway AIs" thread) so it's not totally alien to RB.

My own inclination would be to say that reloads are never "allowed" (apart from the rare exceptions noted in the outdated Imperium rules) - I think most players won't feel they've "really" won if they had to reload to get past an early council vote anyway - with the understanding that if a fun and challenging game gets scuttled by an early council loss, there's no reason a player can't reload and try to change the outcome, and report the result as a shadow game. But I'm not going to dictate what an Imperium is allowed to look like. Imperium 41 (for example) was nothing like the way I'd run a game!

[Ianus]

Ugh! Let's not talk about Imperium 41!
I agree that a loss is a loss. How else will we learn anything? That said there is no reason that the player can't immediately reload and continue to play and then just declare the game a shadow. The game report is still just as fun to read and compare!

[shallow_thought]

Ugh! Let's not talk about Imperium 41!
I agree that a loss is a loss. How else will we learn anything? That said there is no reason that the player can't immediately reload and continue to play and then just declare the game a shadow. The game report is still just as fun to read and compare!

But that is the question. I'd love to think that I'd have had the energy to go back and replay if the diplo had gone against me rather than the easy ride I got in 42 - I do have a lot of practice in reloading and retrying over the years, after all  . But the observation is that the players didn't, or couldn't find the time. First thing to try is perhaps an explicit statement that the game is both hard and involves an element of luck, and that retries are their reports are valued by the community as part of the learning process and simply as war stories, even if they can't be "scored", so long as they're clearly marked. I certainly got perspective from the reported losses this time round.