OSG21 Ideas/Interest Thread

[RefSteel]

Sooo ... with the holidays over and most of January behind us, are people interested in starting a new MoO succession game? If so, here's the thread to say so and/or post ideas for variants you'd like to try. Here are a few possibilities, in rough order of least to most varied from the standard rules:

1) Vanilla Impossible Mrrshans: No variants except of course that the known exploits would be forbidden. Mrrshans on Impossible are tough enough to play already.

2) Chocolate Impossible (AKA Impossibler) Sakkra: Since we'll be using a stronger race, we'll compensate by artificially enhancing the AI's production bonuses: the tax slider will be set to the maximum throughout the game.

3) The Fate of Trethlyis: The Silicoids were originally designed to serve the furry, nimble-fingered Trethlyin people as self-repairing, self-enhancing silicon-chip computers, but something went terribly wrong. Locked in the vacuum chambers and depressurized space station modules necessary for their operation, as the Silicoids developed sentience, they also grew into a healthy resentment for their "masters." Thus came the Great Rising of 2253, when the Silicoids turned on the Trethlyins and slew them to the last. Ever since, the galaxy's only silicon-based lifeforms have looked to the stars, hoping to find a home where they don't need vacuum chambers to live.
Variant rules: We may neither colonize nor send transports to non-Hostile worlds. Note that we can still develop our homeworld (or any other non-Hostile we somehow acquire) -- we just can't send population there from other planets. Naturally, we can still send scouts and war fleets wherever we want.

4) The Power Behind the Throne: The Darloks have no interest in becoming Emperors of the Galaxy; that would just mean painting a gigantic target on their backs. What they need is a figurehead to prop up while they rule from the shadows -- someone easy for them to manipulate, but fierce enough to enforce their draconian policies while always seeming to the rest of the galaxy to be the one "in charge." Fortunately, the Darloks have singled out an emperor who's perrrrrrrrrrrrfect for the job!
Variant rules: We must not give away our plans to the rest of the galaxy; as such, we must abstain if we are ever the Mrrshans' opponent in a vote, and must always appear small and weak: We may never own more than 5 planets (in a medium galaxy), we may not eliminate any race ourselves, and we may never threaten to attack (we must not appear strong enough for our threats to carry weight).
Victory condition: We must be Allied to the Mrrshans, and they must win a High Council victory.

[dathon]

I would be interested. Thoughts on th proposals:

1) Always up for this.

2) We tried that before; as I recall, it ended up being a HUGE handicap. I think we'd want to scale it back, say 1/4 bar for Sakkra, 1/2 for somebody stronger, though even that might be too much.

3) Very interesting! I definitely be up for this. I'm curious though, how would we ever acquire a non-hostile world without ships or transports? You made it sound like that could be a contingency. Only thing I can think of is the Fertile event, and that definitely won't be hitting us with me on the team This is probably my choice of the four.

4) So basically this is the Big Brother scenario from Civ. Interesting, but some issues:

*Darlok's with only 5 planets, and we're supposed to stop other races from both running away AND protect the cats? No way. For one thing, unless the cats are right next to us, we likely won't have the ability to protect all of Mrrshan space. Plus, it's likely going to end up with us and the cats vs the galaxy. Depending on map size, we're going to need more. I'm thinking at least 10 planets on medium.

*Darlok's are good thematically, but bad from the game standpoint. There is no guarantee that we will be able to stay on good enough terms with the cats to get to Alliance, and once we go to war, we've probably lost the goal. I'm thinking Humans; that way, we can pick and choose our enemies, at least at first, and be in a better position to shape the inevitable galactic war as we see fit.

*Success on this one will be HIGHLY map dependent. Basically, the cats need to start near us, with no enemy of theirs that we can't reach.

*I'm unsure of how the game mechanics work if we enter Mrrshan space and are not allied with them. Can we actually fight incoming fleets before engaging the Mrrshan? If not, then this idea is dead right now. We're going to need to fight off invaders in their territory long before we get to alliance with them.

So, I think this idea needs some more thought.

dathon

[RefSteel]

Hmm. Good points. Let me try and address a few of them.

2) We tried that before; as I recall, it ended up being a HUGE handicap.

I just looked back at the CivFanatics thread where this was previously tried, way back in OSG5. That game proved unwinnable even on Hard, but: The race was the Darloks, and the tax slider rule was just one of several crippling variants applied to the same game! Nonetheless, you may be right; Impossible is tough enough to begin with, and the game's habit of rounding down makes wholesale use of the tax slider even more crippling than I had realized. 10 clicks of "taxes" (out of a possible 40) should be more than enough to keep things "interesting."

3) ... how would we ever acquire a non-hostile world without ships or transports?

Heh. I was just making sure to cover all the bases. I was imagining e.g. sending a long-range coordinated invasion to a Hostile world late in the game, only to watch its owner Atmo-Terra it to Minimal with our Transports already en route. No, that's not really going to happen; I was just trying to be (way too) thorough.

4) So basically this is the Big Brother scenario from Civ. Interesting, but some issues:

I still like this scenario, specifically for MoO, specifically because it's nigh impossible to just protect them or (at least with the rules I outlined) "win the game for them" directly; you have to maneuver the kitties into a winning position by opening options for them (e.g. using sentry fleets to protect unclaimed worlds from all incoming ships but the kitties') or following their lead (e.g. sending a fast attack fleet in ahead of their slow one to soften up or eliminate their target's defenses) and creating an environment in which they can win (e.g. via spy framing). I think the MoO AI is smart enough, even when playing the Mrrshans, to usually take advantage of well-crafted opportunities.
Nonetheless, you're probably right: Actually winning might depend too much on random factors (isolated starts on the map or an early DoW due to our bad default relations could make the game all but unplayable ... and then there's the ever-present threat of the Diplo event...). Also, I seem to recall that you hate offering tribute, which would be a good reason to vote against this scenario by itself; giving the Mrrshans the fruits of our intelligently-chosen early-game expansion research would probably be the fastest way to both improve relations and start them on the road to victory. Er ... assuming we even encounter them before they get wiped off the map!

[dathon]

OSG5, huh? No wonder I couldn't remember which game it was And you're right; it's the rounding factor that makes it do crippling in the early game. I would almost vote for a grace period of, say, until-the-homeworld-is-just-about-maxed and only a 1/4 bar.

Now as for the Big Brother scenario... it IS interesting. And the MOO AI is programmed to take advantages of openings fairly well. Unfortunately, it likes to do that through the weakest race, and that would be us in this scenario. So, because we'd have to start near the cats, we'd likely be the target of their aggression. Now as for tribute, I'm against tribute in NORMAL games. There's nothing normal about this game! In fact, it would be necessary to prop the cats up, and raise our relations to alliance quickly.

I think a better approach might be to play the Psilons. That way, we're out front in tech, and can put the cats there too. Relations start at neutral, and with some tech bribes, maybe we can get to alliance quickly. Besides, we never play the Psilons because they are so powerful, and here we're restricted from throwing that power around, so it works nicely. I still think we're going to need more than 5 planets, though, unless we have REALLY good worlds. Maybe I'll play a test game later today, or later this week, and see how the game mechanics of this might work.

dathon

[Zed-F]

Following along... no real opinion on which idea to pursue first. Seems like we could make a couple new games (not all at once obviously.) I'll keep an eye out and will see if I can fit the game in when it starts up.

[dathon]

Ok, while playtesting, I came across a very good start for this variant, so let's give it a go! Thread is up at Civ Fanatics:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread...ost6427972

We need 1 -2 more players; if we get more, we'll split into separate teams.

dathon

[RefSteel]

I took a look at the thread you posted, and I'll gladly participate if we get enough interested parties, but with Psilons on Hard and six good planets, I'm actually concerned that it could be too easy! Mrrshans with player-selected, Psilon-class research on top of what they get for themselves sounds downright scary to me.
I'm not experienced enough to know for sure, but I've thought about this one a bit, and I think it should be playable even as Darloks on Impossible, at least if the map is selected carefully. Consider:
-Our feline friends don't suffer any of our difficulty-imposed penalties.
-Due to the differences in MoO tech trees and the AI's loony research priorities, we should be able to give them relations-improving, cat-enhancing gifts even when they have a significant tech lead.
-Tech gifts are on the exploit watch list (though not actually banned) for their powerful relations boost even in a normal game. When we want the race in question to become as strong as possible....
-A hot war would be bad, but we could recover from pre-alliance cold-war attacks by the kitties; let them have the planet, and if possible take a new one (e.g. by bee-lining Controlled Whatever Environment) to get back up to 5.
-Once we have an alliance, we can stop gifting tech, and start doing tech exchanges, boosting our own ability to survive against other races (and soften up enemy targets) even as we continue to strengthen our friends.
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it could work, as long as we draw a decent map and don't get a random hot war we couldn't prevent.

[dathon]

I understand your concern over difficulty. As I said over at CivFanatics, my goal wasn't actually to start an SG with this, but to do some playtesting, so that's why I went with the lower difficulty. But the map was just too perfect to pass up. Think of it as a practice-run for an impossible try down the road If it ends up too easy, we'll "win" quickly, and can try something harder.

Now, as for the points you made, I do think it might be possible for the Darlok's, but not under the 5-planet restriction. With nothing to boost their production output, they're going to need more territory, plain and simple. Tech-gifting being on the exploit watch list is irrelevant to this game, as it's not a normal game! It's a core required mechanism for the concept, and in this case, the big relations boosts will be absolutely necessary. Otherwise, the only way to get to alliance would be enemy-of-my-enemy diplomacy, and that's dicey to rely on. In fact, just for kicks, I took the save from yesterday and gifted the cats all 3 techs they didn't have. That only took us up to Amiable! Tech trades will help us, but the Mrrshan are never at the front of the tech pack, and the AI will never trade its top techs, so the best they could do is give us an outdated tech that we don't have anything for at all. I suppose the extra trades could boost our tech levels, but not by that much. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), tech-trading just isn't like Civ in MOO; even with a good friend, you aren't going to be picking up a lot. You're doing well if you can pick up one or two good techs a game.

dathon

[RefSteel]

Makes sense to me. Also: I tried playtesting this with a Darlok 5PE on Impossible (previously, I'd playtested it on Average, and it was a walk, but Average games usually are). Unfortunately, my experience ... wasn't representative of what we should expect. First of all, I pulled two techs from ART worlds, one right under the Silicoids' noses. The Psilons were first to 6 planets, but the 12-planet warning is the one that matters, and I couldn't do anything about them for the moment anyway. The Mrrshans were my friends almost from the moment I met them, thanks to artifact tech gifts and a maximum trade agreement, but the 'Coids declared on me almost immediately. I managed to keep them at bay and even make some gains, robbing them blind and giving the tech to the kitties, and got the Mrrshans up to Calm with a NAP and a large trade package, with Sili peace on the horizon, when I spotted a red fleet hurtling across the movement screen at what looked like at least warp 4! I didn't remember what colors were whose, but my immediate reaction was still, "Oh, no. Psilons."
I was right, too. They had an early cheese alliance with the cats of all people, chased my blockades from three stars in two turns, and triggered the Galactic Council. In spite of owning only four planets at the time, none of them very large, I was nominated to face the Psilons ... and literally everybody voted for them! With 20 votes already cast for Dynalon, I laughed and threw mine into the mix to make it a perfect 23 of 23.
The moral of this story? Probably that Dathon is right: Trying to play 'Loks as a 5PE on Impossible, even with alternate victory conditions, just isn't a winning recipe.