Remnants of the Precursors Succession Game?

[haphazard1]

That sample galaxy does not look much like a spiral to me. And I would hate to start at that star in the southwest, all by itself. Or even a few of the eastern stars.

But something like that could work, or the ellipse mentioned. I am good with whatever people would like to try.

[shallow_thought]

Modnar was the first community AI based off of the original Base AI. It's pretty close to it but a little stronger. The Xilmi AI is the serious one where the AI developer iterated and worked on it for over a year. The Fusion Mod has to most up-to-date version of that AI but I'm pretty sure the version in the 1.04 release is tougher than 98% of the 4X AIs on the market.

I feel this kind of choice overload is a downside of the community mod way of doing things. It's fine for single player (who cares what kind of custom mod-mod pack I'm running for my personal XCom LW games?), but it's a pain for team / SG / MP. It's one reason we keep playing "Kyrub's MoO" here!

Good luck in getting over the "exactly what are we playing?" hump - I really hope this gets started and runs well. RL is too up itself for me to play, but I would very much value the entertainment and distraction.

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry for ignoring the thread the last few days, was doing lots of things after work this week.

I'm seeing preferences for hard/modnar; given how SGs usually allow you to play at a higher level than casual (partly due to not having to do all the turns, and partly due to concentrating more [at least for me]) I think this is feasible for a first SG.

I think the player list is:

Mise - played out a few starts but nothing serious yet
haphazard1 - seems to have a few games under their belt
RefSteel - doesn't have time at the moment, but is interested
DP101 - probably our strongest player
rgp151 - has experience at hard or higher
Fenn - has a couple of games, at least normal difficulty

I don't think RayF or Shallow Thought are signing up but look to be interested in cheering us on.

That is definitely enough for an SG (a couple of more sign-ups and we could even split the field [hint, hint]). I can roll a map tomorrow, Hard Modnar, possible non MOO standard shape and about 70 to 100 stars. Any preferences for Species/Races or other choices?

[Ray F]

I will try to keep an eye on it in case you have any questions! Otherwise I will try to stay out of it.

As far as maps, probably an ellipse with about 200 stars would be a good start. Even though the maps in ROTP can be larger, this is compensated by having more enemies, and just generally faster gameplay.

I would also recommend turning off Space Monsters if you have a lot of new players. They are much more challenging than in MOO1 and can be a turn-off for new players.

[Brian Shanahan]

I will try to keep an eye on it in case you have any questions! Otherwise I will try to stay out of it.

As far as maps, probably an ellipse with about 200 stars would be a good start. Even though the maps in ROTP can be larger, this is compensated by having more enemies, and just generally faster gameplay.

I would also recommend turning off Space Monsters if you have a lot of new players. They are much more challenging than in MOO1 and can be a turn-off for new players.

Thanks for the advice. And if you want to play, you're more than welcome to join in.

[haphazard1]

It sounds like turning off space monsters is probably a good idea, unless we want to die horribly and have our planets devoured. I have not tried them yet, so have no idea how to deal with them.

Race...if we are going with Hard/Modnar, then I would suggest picking something not too weak. Maybe not the strongest races, unless we want to go with RefSteel's suggestion and add some kind of variant restrictions?

[Brian Shanahan]

It sounds like turning off space monsters is probably a good idea, unless we want to die horribly and have our planets devoured. I have not tried them yet, so have no idea how to deal with them.

Race...if we are going with Hard/Modnar, then I would suggest picking something not too weak. Maybe not the strongest races, unless we want to go with RefSteel's suggestion and add some kind of variant restrictions?

I think the first SG should be fairly vanilla. I haven't tried them yet in RotP but the not-Sakkra, if they're like their MOO counterparts would be a decently strong faction that aren't too punishing to mistakes but also without the massive bonii like the not-Klackons and not-Psilons.

[Fenn]

Not-Sakkra sounds good to me.

I know RotP is faster than MOO, but 200 stars is still a ton to me! Maybe it'll be easier to manage in a SG setting where you only have a few turns at a time, but I might want something a little lower to start. Will go with whatever the group decides though.

[haphazard1]

I agree that 200 stars sounds like a very large galaxy, which could lead to a lot of management time even with RotP governors and tools. It would presumably lead to a longer game, which would give a chance to play with later game toys. Maybe something a bit smaller?

Do we want to allow the AIs to reject a council vote and go for final war, or turn that off and allow a council win if we can get one? One of the things I like about MOO is not needing to drag out the final mop up phase. But I am happy to go with whatever the group prefers.

I am a fan of the lizards, so would be happy to play them. The pop growth bonus makes planet management fairly forgiving, and being skilled at planetology is always useful. But I am open to other choices.

[rgp151]

I'm not planning on playing. Just too much going on to have time to contribute properly, but have fun guys. I've enjoyed the game and think its very close to the original with a few very nice tweaks. Be aware that the MAX indicator no longer exists to tell you when your factory production will match population, so keep an eye on that in the early game. IMO, 70 stars is a good size.