New idea: splinter race variants

[Arantor]

Since in both MoO I and MoO II there is the notion of a precursor race, it struck me that it wouldn't be entirely crazy to think of them as almost a progenitor race rather than just a precursor.

On that logic, if you accept the idea that each of the races you're up against was essentially seeded by that precursor race, is it not also possible that they seeded variants of the races too?

Sort of in the same way Romulans are suggested to be derived from Vulcans, both races share physiological traits, and it is assumed that all other characteristics would be at least a little shared.

We all know that Psilons, for example, are potentially a run-away race. And if you play the Psilons, you know automatically that you have an advantage over all the other races. But what if you were to play the Psilons yourself and be up against a variation of the Psilons? Maybe not quite the same exact race, maybe a slight + modifier here and a slight - modifier there (obviously you'd need to tweak this for all the races' variants), but it would mean you could essentially play a race with the same overall advantages that you normally would enjoy.

On the flip side, playing as the Mrrshan, you'd have a potential equally-unlucky race out there.

The only problem I can imagine is that the balance would either be too marginal as to present an interesting variation, or too extreme to be a 'fair' opponent. Then, I suppose, is the problem of location; your doppleganger race can't be too close (they might swarm you if they're aggressive) but can't be too far away (discounts the doppleganger theory)

[Zeraan]

Since in both MoO I and MoO II there is the notion of a precursor race, it struck me that it wouldn't be entirely crazy to think of them as almost a progenitor race rather than just a precursor.

On that logic, if you accept the idea that each of the races you're up against was essentially seeded by that precursor race, is it not also possible that they seeded variants of the races too?

Sort of in the same way Romulans are suggested to be derived from Vulcans, both races share physiological traits, and it is assumed that all other characteristics would be at least a little shared.

We all know that Psilons, for example, are potentially a run-away race. And if you play the Psilons, you know automatically that you have an advantage over all the other races. But what if you were to play the Psilons yourself and be up against a variation of the Psilons? Maybe not quite the same exact race, maybe a slight + modifier here and a slight - modifier there (obviously you'd need to tweak this for all the races' variants), but it would mean you could essentially play a race with the same overall advantages that you normally would enjoy.

On the flip side, playing as the Mrrshan, you'd have a potential equally-unlucky race out there.

The only problem I can imagine is that the balance would either be too marginal as to present an interesting variation, or too extreme to be a 'fair' opponent. Then, I suppose, is the problem of location; your doppleganger race can't be too close (they might swarm you if they're aggressive) but can't be too far away (discounts the doppleganger theory)

One simple way of doing this in MoO 1 is having the tech fields' affinity randomized, but with equal overall advantages. For example, Psilon is Good in all fields. A splinter race might have one field as Average, and another field as Excellent, retaining the balance. So if you use default Psilon, and you go up against another Psilon that excels in Weapons and Computers, but are average in Planetology and Force Field, watch out!

For MoO 2, since there's customization available for races, we can define some traits as unchangeable (for example, Subterranean for Klackons), while randomizing other traits. I don't think there's tech field affinity like in MoO 1 right?

On an different note, while working on copying the game mechanisms from MoO 1, I noticed that Average is 100% of the base research cost, good is 80%, Excellent is 60%. 20% incrementals right? Wrong! Poor is 125%, an extra 5% penalty! Perhaps if we change the Poor to be 120% instead of 125, it might help bolster the weaker races?

Bulrathis have Poor in Computer.
Mrrshans and Silicoids have Poor in Construction.
Alkaris and Silicoids have Poor in Force Field.
Meklars and Silicoids have Poor in Planetology.
Klackons and Silicoids have Poor in Propulsion.
Silicoids have Poor in Weapons.

It'd help Silicoids the most, but also help Alkaris, Mrrshans, and Bulrathis (Meklars and Klackons don't really need the help, and an extra 5% in those fields don't impact the game as greatly as other fields)

[Arantor]

As far as the affinity being randomised goes, I wouldn't want to skew them too drastically away from their current state, simply because even if a race is a splinter, it's still going to have a lot of similarity in terms of bias towards certain things. But yeah, I can see that maybe working if done carefully.

For MoO 2 though, the traits are usually so entrenched for a race that it almost doesn't work if you change it. All the major races have major traits that are expensive - probably the one that most comes to mind is Psilons having Creative which is worth 8 points. In MoO 2's tech tree, you have 8 categories, and at each level in each category are 1-3 techs. Normal races only get to pick 1 per level per category, making for specific tradeoffs that you may have to fix with diplomacy or espionage, while Creative races automatically get all the picks per level per category (and I'm not sure there's an increased tech cost)

As far as the tech costings being 60/80/100/125, poor is a distinct disadvantage - but on the other hand, having a clutch of good (not even excellent) biases is actually also very awkward; it's the sole reason the Psilons are so dangerous because while they don't have production bonuses or anything else, the fact that they have the choice of all techs AND they have only 80% base cost of *everything* makes them very very dangerous. I've certainly found that when not playing the Psilons myself, games always come down to 'Psilons present' and 'no Psilons present' games. They are probably the strongest race, and because of their ability to research more thoroughly, they're more likely to obtain the Improved Robot Controls and Improved Industry Tech techs to boost production, and it's certainly not unheard of to see Psilons out-producing either the Klackons or the Meklars.

I would actually - subject to playtesting - be more inclined to lower the advantage of such races, bringing the costings to 66/85/100/125 or even including the suggestion of cutting the extra pain to bring the costings to 66/85/100/120 (but without changing the propensity of races to have/not have techs in their tech trees)

As far as bolstering the weaker races in general, I outlined some other thoughts I had in http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...#pid437794 specifically around changing the distribution of things (changing the Silicoid tech biases, Sakkra diplomacy and Alkari's ship maintenance) which might be relevant here too.

[Zeraan]

As far as the affinity being randomised goes, I wouldn't want to skew them too drastically away from their current state, simply because even if a race is a splinter, it's still going to have a lot of similarity in terms of bias towards certain things. But yeah, I can see that maybe working if done carefully.

For MoO 2 though, the traits are usually so entrenched for a race that it almost doesn't work if you change it. All the major races have major traits that are expensive - probably the one that most comes to mind is Psilons having Creative which is worth 8 points. In MoO 2's tech tree, you have 8 categories, and at each level in each category are 1-3 techs. Normal races only get to pick 1 per level per category, making for specific tradeoffs that you may have to fix with diplomacy or espionage, while Creative races automatically get all the picks per level per category (and I'm not sure there's an increased tech cost)

As far as the tech costings being 60/80/100/125, poor is a distinct disadvantage - but on the other hand, having a clutch of good (not even excellent) biases is actually also very awkward; it's the sole reason the Psilons are so dangerous because while they don't have production bonuses or anything else, the fact that they have the choice of all techs AND they have only 80% base cost of *everything* makes them very very dangerous. I've certainly found that when not playing the Psilons myself, games always come down to 'Psilons present' and 'no Psilons present' games. They are probably the strongest race, and because of their ability to research more thoroughly, they're more likely to obtain the Improved Robot Controls and Improved Industry Tech techs to boost production, and it's certainly not unheard of to see Psilons out-producing either the Klackons or the Meklars.

I would actually - subject to playtesting - be more inclined to lower the advantage of such races, bringing the costings to 66/85/100/125 or even including the suggestion of cutting the extra pain to bring the costings to 66/85/100/120 (but without changing the propensity of races to have/not have techs in their tech trees)

As far as bolstering the weaker races in general, I outlined some other thoughts I had in http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...#pid437794 specifically around changing the distribution of things (changing the Silicoid tech biases, Sakkra diplomacy and Alkari's ship maintenance) which might be relevant here too.

Maybe for MoO 1, the tech affinity can't be more than 1 level away from the standard race's settings. So Psilons can't have Poor, while Silicoid can't have Good in most of its fields. So they don't diverge too much.

That's right, in MoO 2, you have bonuses/penalties to research points per population. No field affinities. The way I see it, the rightmost column with attributes (poor/rich homeworld, subterranean, creative/uncreative, etc) can't be modified, but all other attributes (ground combat, attack bonus, research, etc) can be randomized, but with 1 level restriction (so if you have +2 research, can't have 0 or -1, only +1 or +2)

Yeah, Psilons' advantage is a strong one. Your suggestion is a step in right direction. Maybe make it consistent, instead of 20% incremental, make it 15% incremental? Excellent would be 70%, Good is 85%, Average is 100%, and Poor is 115%?

I will address your other ideas in the other thread shortly.

[Arantor]

Yeah, my knowledge of MoO 2 is much hazier, I never got into it enough to really study the mechanics the way I have in the past with 1.

I can see the benefits of going to 70/85/100/115, but playtesting will be important. The choice of race should still be an important factor in things - if the races are too closely balanced, it can very quickly and very easily become irrelevant which race you pick, and that would be a disaster: a major part of the character of MoO 1 is that the race you pick should directly have a bearing on how you play the game.

If you can play all the races the same way without significant difficulty, something is very wrong, and if the bonuses are too close together, that becomes a real practical danger.

One thing I'm not sure about with the other races... I know Silicoids can't ever have the ecology restoration techs or the reduced waste techs, and the like. It fits the race and so on.

Now, my understanding with the rest is that they can theoretically get any tech in the trees, without restriction of the tree itself, and that their restrictions are driven primarily by randomness based on their bias in a tech tree. (Need to check the OSG for this) For example, the Alkaris are Excellent in Propulsion, the Psilons are Good, but both can probably obtain most of the techs in the Propulsion tree, just limited by how many they can choose from a time. It's not like there will be Alkari-specific entries or Psilon-specific exceptions.

Is per-race tech other than Silicoids something of interest? I can see it might be for splinter races, to randomise whether a splinter race is bound the same way the main race is.

[Zeraan]

Yeah, my knowledge of MoO 2 is much hazier, I never got into it enough to really study the mechanics the way I have in the past with 1.

I can see the benefits of going to 70/85/100/115, but playtesting will be important. The choice of race should still be an important factor in things - if the races are too closely balanced, it can very quickly and very easily become irrelevant which race you pick, and that would be a disaster: a major part of the character of MoO 1 is that the race you pick should directly have a bearing on how you play the game.

If you can play all the races the same way without significant difficulty, something is very wrong, and if the bonuses are too close together, that becomes a real practical danger.

One thing I'm not sure about with the other races... I know Silicoids can't ever have the ecology restoration techs or the reduced waste techs, and the like. It fits the race and so on.

Now, my understanding with the rest is that they can theoretically get any tech in the trees, without restriction of the tree itself, and that their restrictions are driven primarily by randomness based on their bias in a tech tree. (Need to check the OSG for this) For example, the Alkaris are Excellent in Propulsion, the Psilons are Good, but both can probably obtain most of the techs in the Propulsion tree, just limited by how many they can choose from a time. It's not like there will be Alkari-specific entries or Psilon-specific exceptions.

Is per-race tech other than Silicoids something of interest? I can see it might be for splinter races, to randomise whether a splinter race is bound the same way the main race is.

I've implemented MoO 1's tech tree in my game, Beyond Beyaan. Basically the rules for tech availability in a field is this:

Must have at least one tech from each tier (a tier is 5 levels, some tiers have 2, 3, or 4, while others have 1)
Must have certain technologies in tree to be valid (either range 4 or 5, at least one missile tech, etc)
Silicoids of course have special exceptions in that they don't have terraforming techs.

But that's it. I don't remember seeing anything about increasing chances of having more techs in a tree. You're probably thinking of MoO 3; Where creativity means having more techs in your tree.

[Arantor]

I have played MoO 3 precisely once, for all of about 15 minutes before I realised I hated it, so no, I'm not thinking of MoO 3. But MoO 2 definitely does that with the Creative races having all the techs in a tier instead of a pick per tier.

I was thinking of the fact that Silicoids have items removed from their tech tree, and wondering if other races did - and/or whether there are techs unique to each race or not. I don't see why there wouldn't be techs unique to each race, as well as potential exclusions in each race.

Page 212-3 of the OSG says that the tech tree is fixed at creation and that - except for Silicoids' exclusions on planetology - each tech has a 50% chance of being in the race's tech tree. But it doesn't say that every choice will be presented to the player. There are certain techs that are guaranteed to be in the tech tree, though - a planetary shield, improved robot controls, one missile tech and either hydrogen or deuterium fuel cells (so you always have 4 or 5 parsec fuels).

Now, my understanding was that when you have a choice of items to pick at each round of tech choices, the better a race is at that technology, the more choices you will have. This does seem at odds with the OSG but is consistent with what I've observed, and what anecdotal evidence I've come across from other players. (Mind you, the OSG isn't perfect, it mentions things like Controlled Radioactive Landings, rather than the later name of Controlled Radiated Environment)

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that it might be neat if other races had per-race rules that aren't exactly the above. For example, the Sakkra are pro-life. I find it unlikely that, thematically, they would have the death spores. I would find it more interesting if they had a reduced chance to obtain it - perhaps instead of the 50% chance of it being in their tech tree, a 25% chance of being in their tech tree or even lower. I can see other races have specific techs in their tree that must be there or improved chance of being in there.

I could imagine, for example, seeing Alkaris as having a 66% rather than 50% chance of obtaining each of the engine techs and perhaps a 75% chance of obtaining the inertial techs rather than 50%.