Host: Caledorn
Admin: ???
Map maker: Commodore
Starting date: June 29, 2018
Mod: RtR 2.0.8.3
Mod Changelog: Available here
Turn Timer: 24 hours
Rules:
Quote:Mod: Rebalance the Realms 2.0.8.3.
Difficulty: Monarch.
Speed: Normal.
Era: Ancient.
Turn Speed: 24 real hours/turn.
Vassals, Huts, and Events: Off.
Tech Trading: Off.
Barbarians: On, Normal.
Espionage: On, no active missions, no spies.
Diplomacy: AI Diplomacy. No trading cities or using the trade window to communicate. Exceptions: fish for fish and copper for copper deals are allowed.
Double Moves: Standard Realms Beyond rules. Don’t be a jerk.
Map Trading: Allowed, but only after researching Paper (even though the mod allows it at Writing).
Blockades: Allowed.
Pick style- Snakepick
Signups:
Quote:1. Charriu & Zalson -- Tokugawa of China
2. RFS-81 & haphazard1 -- Pacal of Mongolia
3. superdeath & masterjason -- Boudica of Zulu
4. Magic Science & Mr. Cairo -- Mao of Inca
5. shallow_thought & Hitru -- Ghengis of Persia
6. Coeurva and OT4E -- Shaka of Rome
(April 12th, 2018, 15:27)spacetyrantxenu Wrote: The timer for the first turn is set to 100 hours, so take your time and make sure everything looks good with the game settings. We've already set the timer to 22 hours in game starting next turn, which should equate to 24 real hours. If it doesn't let us know and we can adjust it.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD.
Go forth and maul thy neighbors and thy neighbor's neighbors. Amen.
It's a deeply thematic, but also fairly brainy take on the 4x genre. There's no hidden information, which is almost a given for a tabletop experience, but there is a lot of 'engine-building', of the sort T-Hawk I think enjoys. The game plays out over a map with fixed starting locations for each of its factions (up to 7 with an expansion), representing a heavily fictionalized Eastern Europe circa 1920. Each pseudohistorical faction has distinct abilities, that have a pretty strong effect on the game, and there is further customisation through the set of actions available to each, distributed to players as an 'action mat', independently of faction choice.
There aren't that many things you can do and you can do only two things on your turn: one of move, trade for resources, produce from your tiles, bolster your military strength; and another of upgrading your actions to make them cheaper and punchier, deploying units (mechs!) to the map, concurrently unlocking further abilities of your faction, building buildings which establish map control and also improve your actions, and finally "recruiting", which is another form of upgrading with the added benefit of giving you a yield when any of your neighbours takes a particular action. So a set of 8 actions, split into groups of 4 and paired -- exactly how they are paired is what differentiates one action mat from another. The game is all about coming up with elaborate chains of actions: "I'll move-upgrade to take control of wheat-producing tile, and make recruiting cheaper, then on the next turn I produce-recruit to actually get that wheat and use it to pay for the recruit". Ok, that's not an elaborate chain, now imagine it consisting of four or more links, where some links have such strong effect as "double the movement speed of your units" or "open a permanent teleport from a tile (your choice) to 6 others (pre-defined) on the map".
To make things even more fun, successful completion of actions brings you closer to victory, all based around stars -- deploy all your mechs and you get a star, complete all your upgrades, and you get a star, etc. As soon as someone gets their 6th star the game is immediately over, and we count up the score. Stars themselves are points, so are tiles you control, resources and money. Exactly how many points everything is worth is dependant on your 'popularity', which you can earn through some actions. Popularity allows for an explicit tall vs wide trade-off in the game -- albeit of course the more stuff you have, the more the popularity multiplier is worth to you.
The game is pretty quick and the map is nice and crowded even at low player counts. It is very much a 'finesse' game: bridge-like, rather than go-like or chess-like. There are somewhat too many moving pieces to my liking, and when you just start playing the pace is clunky. However, as you figure out how to string actions together it smooths right up, whilst giving you a nice feeling of satisfaction of having learned the ropes. The greatest achievement of the game is that it does not drag, once people have built up their engines, the ending is quick and punchy. I think the RB crowd will enjoy.
I haven't played the port, but and won't have the ability to for a while, but interested in hearing feedback on it. Should be out of early access by autumn, they say.
Today I was daydreaming about ideas for new races for MoO1. I have no idea if these could ever be modded in. Probably not. But they were just fun to think about and ponder how to balance them.
The Voltans - Energetic Explorers. (Borrowing somewhat from FTL's Zoltans).
Unique game mechanic: All Voltan ships and transports have +2 range. (So, starting range would be 5, or 8 with reserve tanks. Range 4 tech would give 6 range, or 9 with reserve tanks. Etc.)
Technological affinities: Good in Force Fields and Propulsion, Poor in Planetology, Normal in all the rest.
Starting diplomacy: Relaxed with the Humans, Meklar, and Silicoids. Uneasy with Darloks. Neutral with all others.
Homeworld: Voltair
Default personality: Erratic Expansionists
Ship size preference: medium/large.
The Arborians - Guardians of Nature (sort of like Ents in The Lord of the Rings).
Unique game mechanic: Arborians refuse to research or acquire any Improved Industrial Robotics Upgrades. They are stuck with being able to build or use a max of 2 factories per population for the entire game. On the other hand, they get the innate ability to do Atmospheric Terraforming and Advanced Soil Enrichment from the start of the game, although not as technologies, so like the Silicoids they can't technically trade or acquire those techs.
Technological affinities: Poor in Construction, Propulsion, Weapons. Excellent in Planetology. Normal in all the rest.
Starting diplomacy: Uneasy with the Meklar and Silicoids. Neutral with all others.
Homeworld: Arboria
Default personality: Honorable Ecologists
Ship size preference: Large and Huge.
The Mycelians - Spore Warriors
Unique game mechanic: All Mycelian spore weapons deal double damage (death spores deal 2 spore damage, doom viruses deal 4, etc.), and ground combat techs do not benefit the Mycelians (although they can still research and trade them). Instead, the usual ground combat techs are replaced by "Mycelium spores" on the ground combat screen, and these spores do a flat +40 for ground combat throughout the entire game.
Technological affinities: Good in planetology, Normal in all the rest.
Starting diplomacy: Neutral with all.
Homeworld: Mycotopia
Default personality: Aggressive Ecologists
Ship size preference: small and medium.
The Molluscans - Sensory Slugs
Unique game mechanic: +3 to scanner range. ETAs automatically displayed and planets within range are automatically scouted (as if the player had ISS and Advanced Space Scanner—hence, ISS and Advanced Space Scanner only provide range extensions).
Technological affinities: Good in computers. Poor in propulsion. Normal in all other fields.
Starting diplomacy: Relaxed with the Humans, Uneasy with the Klackons and Sakkra, Neutral with all others.
Homeworld: Mollus
Default personality: Ruthless Technologists
Ship size preference: medium.
The Wulfians - Dogged Defenders
Unique game mechanic: Ships and missile bases all have double hp.
Technological affinities: Good in weapons, Poor in Computers and Construction, normal in all others.
Starting diplomacy: Calm with the Humans, Wary with the Mrrshans, Uneasy with the Bulrathi, Sakkra, and Alkari, Neutral with all others.
Race: Bulrathi
Difficulty: Hard
Galaxy: Small
Races: 5
Closing date: July 31, 2018, reports to be posted August 1, 2018
Variant: Player cannot build ships with colony modules. Player can make use of starting colony ship.
Scoring: Score is simply the year the game ends plus a modifier. Modifier is based on type of victory: -50 for Extermination, -20 for Domination (>50% of total vote), -10 for Election (<50% of total vote), +20 for Council Loss, +50 for Extermination Loss.
Rambunctious Brawler Overbear the 46th, often called "Arbo" by his friends and sparring partners, was always a pugnacious creature. From a very young age he operated on the assumption that he was the pinnacle of beardom. His muscles were stronger, his claws were sharper and his jaws bit harder than anyone else on Ursa, at least according to him. This attitude, coupled with a strong inclination to attack first and find out what was said later served Arbo well during the Formation Wars of the late 23th century. He rose quickly through the ranks of the Ursa Home Guard and when the war ended in 2298 he was poised to assume leadership over the Bulrathi. He spend the next 18 months fending off challenges from upstart bear dictators and consolidating his power, and on New Years Day, 2300 he was officially crowned Emperor.
Now firmly in command of the Bulrathi Arbo's aggressive nature is in full effect. Fresh from the bloody Formation Wars followed by nearly two years of combat with rivals for the throne of Ursa our much-feared Bearperor is anxious to test his metal against the other residents of the galaxy. Aside from the lone colony ship presented to him by his subjects when he assumed the throne he has no intention of following peaceful expansion procedures. Instead he plans to carve a place for himself in history with his own claws.
and with the alternative of dropping the warlord for 5 life.
The theory is that javelineers hunt for early treasure, and mid-game practically invulnerable turtles stomp all over arcanus. A single turtle can defend a city, especially behind walls, with blur+prayer. Spell lock and magic immunity for late game.
The theory seemed sound but I just can't get off the ground fast enough. I have succeeded so far with master with 3 builds: ghouls+channeler, holy+flaming weapon horsebowmen and endurance golems.
Beats me how anything would work fast enough with Insane.
It takes some time to get javelineers going, meanwhile I summon a 3-5 nagas with 2-3 focus magic. But it seems I need to get very lucky with AI wizards so that I won't get either a all-around-alliance and a run-away-mushrooming leader, nor an early attack on me before the first turtles are up.
Looking for a sub to play as Egypt in PB38. This is a huge game with 25 players initially, currently three of them are out. The game is in early ADs. I am third-fourth in all major metrics and have an outside shot on winning. Political situation, however, is extremely challenging: two neighbors somehow managed to make a permanent alliance against me, despite AI-diplo setting. I suspect, however, that this is mostly because of my person than because of strategic situation. When a new player comes in, it may change.
My thread: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=9107
Tech thread with game settings: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=9144
I do not update my thead much, sorry, but I will be happy to explain what is going on in game and answer any questions. May be I will make a state of empire post a little bit later.
Look away, look away,
Look away, look away,
This thread will wreck your evening , your home-life, and your day,
Every single update contains nothing but dismay,
So, look away,
Look away, look away.
For players, the prohibition above is absolute.
For lurkers, it is merely advisory. However, those of a sensitive disposition, who prefer their micro elegant, their mechanics sound and their strategy clear, would do well to heed it.
