Imperium 41: What would you like?

[Zeraan]

I propose that we add 6th difficulty level:
Simple
Easy
Average
Hard
Impossible
WhiteMage

[WhiteMage]

I propose that we add 6th difficulty level:
Simple
Easy
Average
Hard
Impossible
WhiteMage

Thanks, but we deal with that in BB. Kyrub is busy enough apparently. He did something like that in MOM.

[Ianus]

Hey Whitemage, I notice that you haven't ever participated in an Imperium. What's up with that? You won't play unless you get to watch everyone else suffer? I'm willing to give your rules a shot but I don't know how much fun I'll have if I can't be competitive AT ALL. It looks to me like the only way to win is to survive until you can RESEARCH to tech parity (or at least far enough to be competitive) and then go on the offensive.

[WhiteMage]

Hey Whitemage, I notice that you haven't ever participated in an Imperium. What's up with that?

OK. I confess. For 15 years I equally loved MOO and MOM. Then after careful data collection and data analysis in both, I decided that MOM was better than MOO (Blasphemy!). More than that, MOM is the best TBS game in existence today. I was looking for a community to join to develop a new MOM since 2004. By then, I would rather spend my time developing new MOM than playing any game. I knew I could not do it alone, so I did not start alone. Big thanks to Catwalk for advertising in late 2010 so I found RealmsBeyond MOM. Since then, I fanatically focused on MOM and got involved in the MOM forum and developments there. Multiple developments started, but all failed or progressed extremely slowly to date. I continue to be involved there. I also gave my effort to help Worlds of Magic development, but could not strike a deal with the developers so they do it without me. So the next thing on my list was MOO. That's when I found Beyond Beyaan and I was able to get a tentative agreement for development.
I only started to read RealmsBeyond MOO a few months ago and I already expressed my opinion on the problems with the Imperium. I would not enjoy playing under those rules. I only skimmed the game reports and I see the current Imperium as a social activity. There is nothing wrong with being a social activity, but what I really look for is a truly exceptional game, with brilliant design, long term software maintenance, strong AI, cheat-free multiplayer, and finally … COMPETITION. Plus a lot, lot more. None of these are present in the Imperium or even in the MOO 1.40m. So it's better to play alone and help development.

You won't play unless you get to watch everyone else suffer?

I do not want to watch anyone suffer. No one should suffer. If you are here, you should have fun. When I (narrowly) lose a game I rejoice, I do not suffer (if I lose to AI, it's even better, since AI is my field). I did not see competition aspect of playing Imperium 40. Also, it was made up on the fly, without data supporting it and it was not tested. Worst of all, the rules were vague and ambiguous: AFAIK, all Imperia were like this, so I would not have played past ones anyway. I hope I did not offend anyone. I just get to the point without sugarcoating.

There are really too few people here at this time. If Beyond Beyaan can be successful, the numbers can easily go up to tens of thousands. I rather spend time on that.

[Catwalk]

It seems our interests are very different WhiteMage. For me personally, this is mainly about an excellent nostalgia trip with a beloved game from my childhood which is still surprisingly good fun. Combine RB's penchant for variants and and my own desire to mess about with rules and settings and I have a recipe for some great gaming experiences. I'm sorry if that's not your thing, maybe you can host a different kind of challenge game outside of the Imperia and see if you can catch people's interest?

I'm declaring the builder challenge the winner for Imperium 41, and I have a few more ideas for it:

1) AI competition
I'm making it absolutely single player. This means I'll put a single AI player off in a corner, cut off from the rest of the galaxy. The entire game will be 100% peaceful, and you will be measured solely on your ability to expand and develop your planets. Imperium 40 gave a painfully clear example of how different circumstances players compete under, because of how differently our AI opponents acted. I'm not saying we should play every Imperium this way, but I think it'll be interesting to try a 100% fair challenge for a change and a builder challenge is pretty much the only way to do that.

2) Races
I'm offering 4 different races to choose from: Psilons, Klackons, Sakkra and Meklar. The game will be set up with a Psilon template, so everybody gets the Psilon tech tree (if this is indeed bigger than that of other races, can anyone confirm via testing?).

3) Objective
Scoring will be based solely on population + factories at 4 deadlines: Turn 50, turn 100, turn 150 and turn 200. Formula as follows:
VP(50) = (pop * 3 + factories) * 4
VP(100) = (pop * 3 + factories) * 3
VP(150) = (pop * 3 + factories) * 2
VP(200) = (pop * 3 + factories) * 1
VP = VP(50) + VP(100) + VP(150) + VP(200)

This way you don't have to waste your time figuring out how to game the system, you just grow as big as you can as fast as you can. I think this may also help boost Meklar and Sakkra, the two weaker races of the four from a traditional viewpoint. There will definitely be some gaming involved with which race is strongest, I don't think the answer is obvious and I have no idea personally. Note that you should not discuss this matter in the thread as that's a spoiler.

4) Reporting
Since most of this game will not be that exciting to follow, I suggest that mandatory reporting will simply consist of your standings at the four deadlines: Turn 50, turn 100, turn 150 and turn 200. A specific format will be issued for people to follow so we can easily compare results with each other. If anyone wants to do additional reporting they're welcome to do it, as long as they also make those 4 status reports. This also helps greatly with reducing time spent reporting, that's one thing that always got me down a bit when playing Imperia. I had fun playing them, but the effort required to report properly often led to failure to finish. I've actually half played 4-5 imperia recently over the past 2 years and kept running into this problem, I usually had a lot of fun playing them but just couldn't keep up with the reporting. I know extensive reporting isn't mandatory, but I also know that comparing games is no fun if all you see is the end result.


This proposal is still up for discussion, so feel free to suggest changes. I will probably use a random map for it, I think it's quite safe to do so with this setup. I might remove all artifact worlds, unless I can figure out a way to set their status to Explored through AI ships so game balance isn't upset by getting a random tech. Getting IER on turn 5 is a game changing advantage, whereas getting Hand Lasers won't do you much good here

[Catwalk]

I would greatly appreciate critical feedback or a thumbs up on the last proposal before I proceed with fleshing it out

[RefSteel]

I would greatly appreciate critical feedback or a thumbs up on the last proposal before I proceed with fleshing it out :)

While a builder challenge does sound like fun, removing the AI from the picture altogether might be going a bit overboard. Granted, there won't be a perfect basis for comparison with AIs behaving differently in different games (and random events -- did you want to turn those off?) but there's going to be randomness anyway, in the timing and/or the effective costs of techs if nothing else. Facing no in-game competition for planets or resources and no risk at all that we'll need to defend doesn't seem as interesting to me as just a regular game against relatively peaceful (even all-pacifist) AIs, setting purely economic goals and establishing rules against conquest before the scoring deadline. Just my 16% of a bit* of course.

*- Not computer science; "two bits," of shave-and-a-haircut fame, is North American English slang for a quarter-dollar.

[Catwalk]

I agree that it's less interesting, but I do feel that the fairness argument weighs heavily in a setting like this. Revised proposal:

1) AI competition
We're up against a single silicoid AI. They will own 6 planets to begin with, but all planets will be set to 2 million colonists (homeworld included). This way we should have a very good idea of how it's going to develop, as much of it will simply be a matter of their starting planets growing super slowly and new planets being colonized at a steady pace with free colony ships. Silicoids are well suited for this, as the growth phase will last the longest and they can expand reliably due to hostility immunity.

2) I'll just go ahead and make a save file for each race, takes little to make extra ones.

3) Add the following score component to all victory calculations:
highest tech level * 10 + second highest tech level * 5

This leads to the following VP formula:
VP(x) = (tech1 * 10 + tech2 * 5 + pop * 3 + factories) * (5 - x/50)
Final score = VP(50) + VP(100) + VP(150) + VP(200)

To calculate your score is submit the following information for turns 50, 100, 150 and 200:
Total factories, total population (pop in transit doesn't count), total number of planets, highest tech level, 2nd highest tech level

The purpose of the formula is to encourage rapid economic growth, as you will be measured more or less equally on early standing and late standing. Moreover, with planets added to the score and a large AI with a weak backbone, conquest for profit will also be a viable option. I hope to see many different approaches to this one, although I'll need to fine tune the formula so it supports multiple strategies.

4) Unchanged

5) Difficulty depends on what's most suited for the map, as we can easily balance actual difficulty with starting difficulty. Does anyone have a full list of the effects of difficulty level?

6) I'm not sure about galaxy size, I'm thinking Medium or Large.

[timmy827]

Re: 5)
Kyrub's AI effects per difficulty

Besides those, I think the main one is the (probably well known) tech costs for the human; tech costs (for a race that is Average) is (tech level ^2) * DiffMod
DiffMod = 20,25,30,35,40 for Simple -> Impossible.

From my nifty OSG I recently acquired:
Computer players more likely to ask for diplomatic deals like trade agreements, etc on lower difficulty.
Higher comp:human fleet strength needed for them to start a war because they "feel strong".
Some bits about AI-AI diplo which won't be relevant if only one of them.
There is something about AI's more likely to 'decide to expand' on higher difficulties (with those free colony ships) although I'm not sure if kyrub's patch altered this behavior...

My 2c on difficulty: I'm not sure what you mean by "actual difficulty" vs "starting difficulty". I would lean towards Impossible but suggest a playtest...concerned that on anything less, the setup you describe will leave the silicoids as spreadout roadkill too easy to poach planets off of.

Re: 6) I would vote for Medium. It is certainly conceivable that winners will all-but-wipe out the AI in this and control every planet, would prefer to have fewer to manage.

Other opinions/thoughts on the idea:
1. In a normal game, you get locked into Final War if it's down to you plus one AI. Will that happen here? Assume that is not the intent although you leave war as an option.
2. Was sort of late to the party, but FWIW I'm on the fence between Ref's and Catwalk's proposals on AI setup in the last two posts.

Question about setup - I assume the player-choice-races all get the same techtree still?

[Catwalk]

I actually didn't know about Final War with one AI left. Are you sure about this? Regardless, that's actually exactly what I'm intending. The AI is meant to be both a menace and potential hunting grounds, there should be no peace at any point. I was actually thinking about how to implement that, if Final War does indeed happen that would be awesome.

All races get the same tech tree, yes. That is actually also a benefit since it helps nerf the Psilons just a little bit and allows for more variety in race choice (if it is indeed correct that Psilons get a larger tech tree, has anyone confirmed through testing?).

As for size, I agree the player shouldn't be overburdened with planets to manage but I'm also concerned about the player being even more bored just sitting on his planets and developing them. I'll try to get a feel for that in a test game before we start.

By actual difficulty I mean how difficult the game is going to be. This can be changed by giving the AI extra planets to begin with, as I'm planning to do. Starting difficulty refers to the in-game difficulty level. That's why I was wondering which in-game difficulty level was best suited for the challenge, if we choose something as low as Normal (for whatever reason) we can still up the difficulty by giving the AI other advantages. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of seeding the AI with planets and tech but keeping them minimal on pop and factories. That way we have much better certainty of their rate of expansion, and it shouldn't vary as much between games.