Imperia Update

[RefSteel]

I've finally gotten my computer back to almost-full functionality, and expect to have the last few programs re-installed soon. My apologies for the delays while I was getting the machine fixed. The plan is currently this:

- Imperium 30 should open on July 19th (NEXT Monday).

- If anyone would like to sponsor an Imperium (including Imperium 30) then please let me know by e-mail (just follow the link on my profile page). "Sponsoring" a game just means coming up with a variant/scenario and a starting save that you think would be fun and challenging. The variant can be entirely based on the save itself if you wish. Playtesting the save to make sure it would make a good Imperium game (at least by playing the first few dozen turns of your own game) is highly encouraged.

- I am currently planning to run Imperium 30 with the original game (Master of Orion version 1.3) as usual. BUT. If there is significant community interest in playing an Imperium under kyrub's embryonic 18 patch, I have an idea for a simple variant that should minimize the impact of the (smallish) AI behavior bug noted here in the patch thread. If you'd like to play an Imperium with the embryonic patch, please state your interest here!

- If you can't wait for the new Imperium, check out kyrub's latest unofficial patch: Version 1.40ii - it can be found here along with the aforementioned "Embryonic 18." Testing Version 1.40ii and reporting any stability issues or other bugs - or the fact that you've played and encountered no such problems - in the current Unofficial Patch Thread would help move the patch that much closer to completion.

Thanks to everyone for your patience!

[ignatius]

Why not some "alternate-realities" theme where people get to chose between 1.30, embr18 and 1.40ii much akin to imp29 which de-facto also featured a strategic choice between two completely different games.

This way, we would get some hard facts on the playability and balancing issues with identical starting conditions. Also, it would minimize hassles for the participants as they can opt to play with whatever version they have installed.

If there's only one version, my personal preference would be 1.40ii over embr18 over 1.30. OTOH, I'm perfectly fine with doing a shadow game so I don't care too much one way or the other.

[DWiggles]

Along the alternate reality vein, what about an Imperia where people play the same map with different races? That way, if you're new, you can play with a really easy race, and if you want a challenge, you can go with a really hard one... I'm not sure how much you can do with the save game editors (and it could cause problems with other races in the game; they would all have to be off limits I suppose so all games are as similar as possible), so I don't really know how viable this is, but it's something I know has been done successfully with Civ games, and is always fun. Just a thought. If it is possible, I'd be willing to do some of the work for it as long as someone can tell me how to...

[RefSteel]

Why not some "alternate-realities" theme where people get to chose between 1.30, embr18 and 1.40ii much akin to imp29 which de-facto also featured a strategic choice between two completely different games.

This can certainly be done, though I think not for Imperium 30; if you would like to sponsor such a game for a future Imperium, that would be great!

Along the alternate reality vein, what about an Imperia where people play the same map with different races?

This is definitely doable with our editing tools. There are actually a couple of ways to handle it: One is to just change the player's race to whatever you want; even duplicating existing races on the map should work. (In fact, I believe it's possible to edit e.g. an all-Psilon map into existence for an insanely tech-heavy game.) Another is to play a "pot luck" game the way they sometimes do over on the Civ side: There are six races on the map, and each player gets to play one of them (with its starting position) at random. That would be a little more complicated to set up, and works best with large numbers of players, but I think it would be tremendous fun. If you're interested in playtesting a map for either of these ideas, I'll be happy to show you how to do it!