OSG 18 Discussion

[Olorin]

I'm in.

Either size galaxy is fine with me.

[ignatius]

I've merged the variant rules with the GCD exploit list I posted in the other thread (including some of Zed's suggestions), eliminated some redundancies and came up with 10 commandments:

1. Orion: It says "... returns to Orion, throne world of the Ancients.", so we will have to conquer Orion before accepting any kind of victory.
   
2. No bribes: We never pay bribes (even if asked for) and never ask for peace.
   
3. Pacta sunt servanda: We will not break treaties (or trade) unless the AI breaks them first or sucessfully attacks us (defined as claiming orbit over or destroying one of our colonies or refusing an ultimatum, see below). In that case we have to dissolve all treaties and trade with the race at the earliest possibility and abstain from diplomatic contact and refusing all offers until they come crawling back begging for peace, in which case we may forgive them.
   
4. No empty threats: If, and only if an AI is about to attack us (incoming fleet) we may issue a protest, to give the AI a chance to correct their mistake, but if the ultimatum is declined we have to treat this as we would treat a sucessful attack (see above), no matter whether we eventually manage to repell the fleet or not.
   
5. Rules of engagement: We never attack colonies of nor do espionage/sabotage against someone we have trade or treaties with.
   
6. Baiting: Unarmed ships have to retreat on their first turn when friendly missle bases are present.
   
7. Ammo: A retreating stack which has used ammo during its turn must not be directed back to the colony it is retreating from unless this colony belongs to you.
   
8. YoYo: Missles which can be dodged by the enemy may only be fired form the minimum distance attainable in this turn when friendly missle bases are present.
   
9. Specials: Any damaging special may only be fired once per turn unless to counter the negative fleet bug.
   
10. Spec Wars: You may only ask an AI to declare war on another race when you are already at war with that race.
    

A slightly harder variant would be to change the ROE to "We never attack colonies of nor do espionage/sabotage against someone unless we are at war with them", which would lay the war initiative completely into the hands of the AI (and would also imply Zed's tac sporing suggestion).

ignatius

[TheArchduke]

I would go with the war intiative for the AI.

In any case, shall we wait 1-2 days for more people? I say, let´s go ahead with 2 teams.

[Zed-F]

I'd still like to include the 'must have a missile base built' rule as regards threats, otherwise seems fine to me. If we and the AI empires are all rushing to stake a claim to a newly vacant world, we don't really have the moral claim to tell the other races to shove off; we haven't proved our claim yet.

[ignatius]

I really have to disagree here. Part of the competion in this case is about being there first. Esp. in the case of a newly conquered world, the attack is usually not meant against us but against the former owner. Why should you be forbidden to make a threat in exactly the situation where it makes the most sense i.e. to divert an attack which was not meant to target you in the first place. In this case, the "giving the AI a chance to correct its mistake" is not tounge in cheek.

This is doubly so with this variant, where any sucessful attack of the AI automatically leads to irrevocable "Foe" status as we are not allowed to ignore it. If the AI insits on attacking us, it will refuse the threat anyway. Also note also that with this variant, we also have to repect the claims of others, as by our ROE we are not allowed to attack a colony if the owner is a friend, so we would always have to retrat an inbound fleet in the same case (and we don't have the option to simply refuse an ultimatum, so we are still worse off than the AIs).

ignatius

[TheArchduke]

So who wants to organize the teams and roll a start? Or shall I do the honour?

[Zed-F]

I really have to disagree here. Part of the competion in this case is about being there first. Esp. in the case of a newly conquered world, the attack is usually not meant against us but against the former owner. Why should you be forbidden to make a threat in exactly the situation where it makes the most sense i.e. to divert an attack which was not meant to target you in the first place. In this case, the "giving the AI a chance to correct its mistake" is not tounge in cheek.

If you haven't proven your claim, it's not really yours yet. It's that simple. Until you prove that it belongs in your territory, other races have just as much moral right to try to settle it as you do.

If you just conquered a world, you have only proved that you can take it, not that you can hold it. You will have had a fleet in orbit in order to take the world in the first place -- just make sure that fleet is capable of repelling an enemy attack and you're golden. Getting a missile base up is usually simple as there tend to be lots of factories left over. In this instance, using a threat in place of a real fleet is a cheapskate maneuver -- if you chose not to bring enough ships to defend your new conquest from attack, you don't have the moral authority to claim the planet in the first place. Once you have the base up, the planet can be considered officially part of your empire.

Even worse is the case where we're colonizing a spud that someone just wiped out or that the other races have been squabbling over for decades. There is no reason our claim to the planet should be better than anyone else's claim to the planet, unless we back it up with military force, NOT empty threats. Otherwise it's far too simple to steal spuds from the other empires and make them productive parts of our empire, without making any more investment in doing so than building a colony ship.

This is doubly so with this variant, where any sucessful attack of the AI automatically leads to irrevocable "Foe" status as we are not allowed to ignore it. If the AI insits on attacking us, it will refuse the threat anyway. Also note also that with this variant, we also have to repect the claims of others, as by our ROE we are not allowed to attack a colony if the owner is a friend, so we would always have to retrat an inbound fleet in the same case (and we don't have the option to simply refuse an ultimatum, so we are still worse off than the AIs).
ignatius

If you're worried about that, then I suggest modifying the variant rules slightly to only consider our planets with missile bases as officially part of our territory and subject to the relevant rules, like so:

1. Orion: It says "... returns to Orion, throne world of the Ancients.", so we will have to conquer Orion before accepting any kind of victory.
   
2. No bribes: We never pay bribes (even if asked for) and never ask for peace.
   
3. Pacta sunt servanda: We will not break treaties (or trade) unless the AI (a) breaks them first, (b) claims orbit over or destroys a world at which we have missile bases, or © refuses an ultimatum. If any of these occur, we must dissolve all treaties and trade with the race, abstain from diplomatic contact, and refuse all offers until they beg for peace, in which case we may forgive them.
   
4. No empty threats: If, and only if, an AI is about to attack us (incoming fleet) at a planet with at least one missile base, we may issue a protest, to give the AI a chance to correct their mistake. If the ultimatum is declined we immediately cut off diplomatic contact as specified in (3) above.
   
5. Rules of engagement: We never attack colonies of nor do espionage/sabotage against someone we have trade or treaties with.
   
6. Baiting: Unarmed ships have to retreat on their first turn when friendly missle bases are present.
   
7. Ammo: A retreating stack which has used ammo during its turn must not be directed back to the colony it is retreating from unless this colony belongs to you.
   
8. YoYo: Missles which can be dodged by the enemy may only be fired form the minimum distance attainable in this turn when friendly missle bases are present.
   
9. Specials: Any damaging special may only be fired once per turn unless to counter the negative fleet bug.
   
10. Spec Wars: You may only ask an AI to declare war on another race when you are already at war with that race.
    

[Zed-F]

So who wants to organize the teams and roll a start? Or shall I do the honour?

You might as well go ahead.

[TheArchduke]

Ok, I quickly rolled the teams:

Team A:

Ungy
Zed-F
mostly harmless
TheArchduke

Team B:

Stuporman
meatbalz
ignatius
Olorin



I started up an impossible game in a medium galaxy with the humans. And we seem to be rather in the middle of it. Save is attached as a zip.

[TheArchduke]

Our variant rules, I hope everyone is okay with them.

1. Orion: It says "... returns to Orion, throne world of the Ancients.", so we will have to conquer Orion before accepting any kind of victory.
   
2. No bribes: We never pay bribes (even if asked for) and never ask for peace.
   
3. Pacta sunt servanda: We will not break treaties (or trade) unless the AI (a) breaks them first, (b) claims orbit over or destroys a world at which we have missile bases, or © refuses an ultimatum. If any of these occur, we must dissolve all treaties and trade with the race, abstain from diplomatic contact, and refuse all offers until they beg for peace, in which case we may forgive them.
   
4. No empty threats: If, and only if, an AI is about to attack us (incoming fleet) at a planet with at least one missile base, we may issue a protest, to give the AI a chance to correct their mistake. If the ultimatum is declined we immediately cut off diplomatic contact as specified in (3) above.
   
5. Rules of engagement: We never attack colonies of nor do espionage/sabotage against someone we have trade or treaties with.
   
6. Baiting: Unarmed ships have to retreat on their first turn when friendly missle bases are present.
   
7. Ammo: A retreating stack which has used ammo during its turn must not be directed back to the colony it is retreating from unless this colony belongs to you.
   
8. YoYo: Missles which can be dodged by the enemy may only be fired form the minimum distance attainable in this turn when friendly missle bases are present.
   
9. Specials: Any damaging special may only be fired once per turn unless to counter the negative fleet bug.
   
10. Spec Wars: You may only ask an AI to declare war on another race when you are already at war with that race.