Imperium 40 Opens Monday!

[Ianus]

Excellent observations Ianus, thanks. I'm a little surprised that Final War is turning into a stale mate, though. Do you lack the firepower to harm their bases? At this point the game usually becomes all about glassing enemy planets with lightning speed bombers, whether you have teleporters or not. Stalemate is certainly not the intention with this, no. I may be biased from playing 1.40m, where Final War plays out quite differently. If 1.3 is the preference, then ignoring Final War is a good idea. Maybe keep just the Orion objective? Also, how about just revealing all battle computers and shields in the tech tree?

I am also surprised that Final War is a stalemate. The AI certainly COULD take me if it wanted, given the fleets I see sitting around. I took a couple of enemy planets early, and the AI just seems content with trying (not all that hard) to take those planets back and leave the rest of my empire alone. Basically we are all sitting at the top of the tech tree and every planet has XX shields and upwards of a hundred missile bases. I haven't been willing to put the time into building a big enough bomber stack, so maybe I will give that a shot here at some point. I don't relish the idea as I said before, as with my tiny empire I would have to glass a good 3/4 of the galaxy AND keep the AI from recolonizing behind me. It just sounds tedious to me, especially with the huge stacks of Black Hole Generators I would have to contend with.
I don't know anything about AI upgrades in 1.40m. I assumed that the patch was mostly meant to fix bugs and such. If kyrub actually improved the AI then that is a huge reason to upgrade. I have been hesitant because I know 1.3 very well and I like it just fine, but the AI in this game just hasn't done what it should be doing. After I colonized Orion, my advanced scanners revealed most of that side of the galaxy, and every world has upwards of 100 bases (Zeon), class XX shields, and there are ships everywhere. Those stacks certainly could destroy me, as I said, but the AI hasn't wanted to. I mean, the Sakkra and the Humans, the two largest parts of the Final War consortium, are both pacifists, but we ARE at Final War.
I like the Orion objective, and that one seems like it could be added to most variants, particularly war-based variants like this one with minimal fuss. Why do you want to reveal the tech tree? What do you hope to accomplish? Aside from removing some of the uncertainty from research I don't see the point. I think that NOT knowing what is coming in those fields makes for more excitement in choosing a research path. "Do I slow down colony ship availability to get planetary shields or is there a planet or two that I just HAVE to have? If I skip here will I have to come back for the shield I am skipping or will I be able to get the next level?" I like having to strategize and guess as I go. That is a core component of the game, and would create more variability in Imperium play.

[Ianus]

I'm a little surprised that Final War is turning into a stale mate, though. Do you lack the firepower to harm their bases? At this point the game usually becomes all about glassing enemy planets with lightning speed bombers, whether you have teleporters or not. Stalemate is certainly not the intention with this, no. I may be biased from playing 1.40m, where Final War plays out quite differently. If 1.3 is the preference, then ignoring Final War is a good idea.

Bah! I give the AI too much credit. Their planets and fleets had managed to fend off my early advances so I gave up on the idea. It turns out that a stack of 2000 Neutronium Bombers and a stack of 2000 Scatter Pack X fighters are a bit better. In ten turns I've burned down 1/4 of the map. My play style is definitely on the side of caution. I like how this variant encourages early war to challenge me on that.
I still feel, however, that requiring an Extermination victory on a Large map detracts from the excitement of the game. I admit that I usually tend to forgo diplomatic victories and crush my enemies, but I also don't usually play Large maps. I can certainly win this game, but burning down another 45 planets doesn't appeal to me all that much.

[Catwalk]

Glad to hear you got busy glassing But I'm fine with just doing the Orion objective. I'm way too much of a builder too, partly because the game balance dictates it. I like variants that give you incentives for early warfare and set you behind if you fail at it.

My intention with the starting techs is to further shift the game balance in favour of war. Even on Large, you will very likely have more military tech available to you for early skirmishes than usual. Combined with the colonization restriction, poaching a planet can easily become the best option. Not only does it give you a planet, it saves you from going up one colonization level on that planet. I suggested revealing BC and shield techs to reduce the luck aspect a little, allowing you to plan out your colonization to an extent and determine when to go for peace and when to go for conquest. Then again, avoiding luck in games has always been a pet peeve of mine.

[Ianus]

Glad to hear you got busy glassing But I'm fine with just doing the Orion objective. I'm way too much of a builder too, partly because the game balance dictates it. I like variants that give you incentives for early warfare and set you behind if you fail at it.

My intention with the starting techs is to further shift the game balance in favour of war. Even on Large, you will very likely have more military tech available to you for early skirmishes than usual. Combined with the colonization restriction, poaching a planet can easily become the best option. Not only does it give you a planet, it saves you from going up one colonization level on that planet. I suggested revealing BC and shield techs to reduce the luck aspect a little, allowing you to plan out your colonization to an extent and determine when to go for peace and when to go for conquest. Then again, avoiding luck in games has always been a pet peeve of mine.

That makes sense. It is very true that invasion will be invaluable in this variant. I found myself sitting around in the early mid-game thinking "hurry up and colonize so I can get more planets." With starting techs I think you should reconsider starting with Planetary shield V, or at least be sure that it is in the tree, as losing a planet in the early game could be an irrecoverable setback.
I do like the scoring system you devised before with dates for Orion and Final War being used to calculate points. Although I have not yet played in any Imperia I like the idea of competitive scoring in that it provides a more concrete way to compare different players' games beyond whatever differences come out in the reports. I'm not sure what to replace Final War with. Maybe: Year captured Orion + [Year of diplomatic victory * 3]; [Year of Conquest victory * 2]; [Year of Domination Victory]; [Year of Extermination victory / 2]
Something like that.

[Catwalk]

I think I've let you all talk me out of the Final War objective, the rest of the variant is plenty to fulfill the objective. In fact, having Orion as the sole objective shifts game balance in interesting ways as you only need to build up enough strength of your own. How strong the AIs become is not that important. It would be cool to see a game where a player is at increasing risk from a runaway Klackon or Psilon empire while being close to taking out Orion. If we go this route, I think we should use Mrrshans as their combat bonus is immensely useful in being able to take on the Guardian faster.

Is there sufficient interest in an Imperium along these lines? Details still subject to change.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for posting the strategic-level report of your increasing-cost colship test game, Ianus! Earlier you asked about embedding images in a post, so:

The easiest way is usually to host images off-site, e.g. at Photobucket or Imageshack or the like [EDIT: Except that both of those are now useless; I use Google to host my images these days...] (a lot of people now use Dropbox, though you have to make sure the images are in a public folder and the things you don't want to share are not). Of course you can also attach images to posts as you did above, and find the image url the forum creates for them, but they will not be visible to guests (i.e. people who aren't logged in to the forums) in that case.

Whatever course you take, you can embed it in a post using img tags, thus:

Code:

[img]http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/attachment.php?aid=980[/img]

That code displays an image that looks like this:



(One of your images from up-thread).

Similarly, this code:

Code:

[img]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2YlOY8Aylzw/WjuwMvqzVtI/AAAAAAAAEIw/UhAk5yXnrNIoZGhydZKlL__zMG7SCIAsQCLcBGAs/s1600/rbo-imp37-teaser1.jpg[/img]

...links to an image from off-site (one of the teasers for Imperium 37) which looks like this:



I hope that helps!

(More later, as I'm able....)

[Ianus]

Thanks Ref! I have set up a Photobucket account and am prepared for Imperium 40. Bring it on!

[RefSteel]

Besides the numerous bug fixes, 1.40m has stronger AI than 1.3.

My understanding is that the AI changes in 1.40M are actually bug fixes themselves, but they definitely improve AI performance overall. To my knowledge, these include:

1) When one race violates or breaks a diplomatic deal (NAP, Alliance, peace treaty, etc.) with another race, the other AIs in 1.3 deemed the violator's victims less trustworthy and the violator as innocent; under 1.40M, this is reversed.
2) AI expansion becomes more conservative upon meeting the player under 1.3; in 1.40M this bug/feature/whatever is removed.
3) Under 1.3, the AI would cease colonization missions whenever it had 4 total colships in its fleet, and so would thereafter colonize planets only when it had a colship there for another reason (e.g. scouting or attack) until one of its colships was destroyed in battle, or until it scrapped its colship design for a tech refit. Under 1.40M, this behavior is corrected.
4) The 1.3 AI uses the wrong formula to determine distances between threats, for purposes of repositioning its fleets. This causes a number of weird behaviors, and is corrected under 1.40M. I recall kyrub suggesting that this fix might actually make the AI less dangerous, because it is more likely to assemble a larger number of smaller combat fleets rather than building its trademark "stacks of doom." The jury's still out on this one, but I think on the whole this is a clear improvement in the quality of the game; whether this is because it improves AI performance or because it has a more satisfying tactical appearance, is hard to judge.

I think I've let you all talk me out of the Final War objective, the rest of the variant is plenty to fulfill the objective. In fact, having Orion as the sole objective shifts game balance in interesting ways as you only need to build up enough strength of your own. How strong the AIs become is not that important. It would be cool to see a game where a player is at increasing risk from a runaway Klackon or Psilon empire while being close to taking out Orion. If we go this route, I think we should use Mrrshans as their combat bonus is immensely useful in being able to take on the Guardian faster.

Is there sufficient interest in an Imperium along these lines? Details still subject to change.

If you (or anyone) sends me a save file that's been play-tested (without spoilers posted) to be sure it'll be a good game, I'd be happy to give it a try (not necessarily as the next Imperium though)! In spite of my misgivings, this would even be true of a game with a more complex rule-set if you felt the complexity was an important part of what made the game fun and unique.

I suspect enough people are away on vacation right now that calling for interest (e.g. by making this thread ...oops) is a bit premature - my inclination is to wait about another week, and then probably post an Imperium on the 13th.

[RefSteel]

Oops - I left out another important AI bug fix:

5) The 1.3 AI is much too willing to accept a "Declare War on..." proposal against a race with which it is allied - more willing even than break the alliance without war. In 1.40M, the bar for declaring war on an ally is set much higher, so the AI is always less willing to do so than to simply break the alliance.

[RefSteel]

... hmmm ... any others interested? I know this sort of transmogrified into a "What's your idea for a game?" thread, but the original idea was to see how many people would like to participate in a new Imperium game....