Emporer of the Fadeing suns team game?

dacole · December 9, 2003, 18:35

Had a curious idea yesterday that I thought I would present here. First if you have never heard of Emporer of the Fadeing suns I'll give a breif description of it here if you have then you should probably skip down to the second part of the message. Emperor of the fadeing suns is a turn based strategy sci-fi game. Imagine a game that mixes the land based combat and management with the space based combat of MOO and you will have the general idea. The story is that the emperor of the known universe has died without an heir and five houses must now vie for the throne. At the start of the game you start out with one unconquered planet and a few spaceships. The first thing you must do is take over your home planet, expand on it building cites ect as well as a space fleet to take over other planets. The beauty of the game is in the fact that besides the other four houses there are two other "factions" that are always computer controled the Church and the merchant guild. Like all these games EOFS has a tech tree but here the most interesting techs are illegal to research by order of the church, so if you decide to research them you better be prepared for an all out war with mother church which though winable can be quite costly. The merchant guild sells and buys equipment and is thus a good way to make money by selling excess equipment and a good place to buy equipment that you can't produce. However there agenda is to get rid of the monarchy and set up a republic. To this end they have a war chest that they place money they make (and being the merchants guild they are quite good at makeing money) when this chest gets to a certain point they declare for a republic start a revolution and the game ends. Also the point of the game is not direct millitary conquest but rather to be elected the Emperor of the Fadeing Suns. Every few years an election is held on the capitol planet an election in which each house has five votes. If a house wins the election twice in a row they are decleared emperor. Now each houses votes are represented by staves and if you happen to have another houses staves when an election roles around...or suppose the designated voteing unit for a house gets assinated (this of course requires research doppelgangers and assisns which are proscribed by the church) well then the election results change accordingly. Thus direct military conquest though a way to win the game is not the only or often the best way to win. Now the problems with the game are in that the AI is terrible light years Worse than the AI in alpha centauri and since you end up with usually ten to 15 planets late in the game, and a huge space fleet well turns can take quite a long time to plan and play. I was serious when I said it had the base managment of alpha centauri spread out over several planets along with the fleet management of MOO.

My experience with the Alpha Centauri Team Game made me think that this might be an interesting game to give this treatment. The terrible AI would be taken care off since you are playing real people, and the incredible level of complication would be taken care of since the work could be spread out (perhaps one person takes care of the planet management while another takes care of the fleet ect). As such I thought I would check if there was anyone who might be interested in joining in such an endevor? I would certainly be willing to help set up (as well as hopefully play) in such a game. For those who don't own the game I could also give primers on how things work in it (as a first step I could pretty easily make the instruction manuel available as a file somewhere).

Just an idea let me know what you think!

General Ludd · December 9, 2003, 19:31

I heard about this game along time ago, and forgot all about it. I'll see if I can get it, and if I like it, I'll consider it.

General Ludd · December 10, 2003, 10:37

For anyone else that's interested, you'll probably be able to find it under the strategy section at that dog of a site which can't be mentioned here.

Skanky Burns · December 10, 2003, 12:02

Yes, you probably can find it there. It is a well organised site, that one we can't mention.

General Ludd · December 10, 2003, 15:10

Nice game. I'm up for trying it, although i don't really know what a 'team game' implies.

Jamski · December 10, 2003, 15:18

I haven't played this for years. Its a good one though. Pretty hard to keep track of all the planets sometimes... but a good one

Still on my hard drive after all this time.

-Jam

dacole · December 10, 2003, 15:56

Cool yes is quite hard to keep track of all the planets (imagine playing it with universal wharehouse off jam heh) why I thought it might be good as a team game. In your opinon jam what would be the proper way to advertise this in the alpaha centauri team game and civ team game forums. Don't want to spam to much...

Osweld to check out what is implied by a team game read through the introductory material for the alpah centauri team games and civ team games. Basicly in a team game you have several people playing the turn rather than just one before it is emailed to the next group. Exactly how the responsibility is divided up and how decisions are made is up to each individual team. Forums and usually a instant message service such as msn becomes greatly important.

Main_Brain · December 10, 2003, 16:02

i remember that some Things were still bugged up like Monopols?

General Ludd · December 10, 2003, 17:11

This seems like the perfect PBEM game to me. The complexity of it wouldn't be so bad when you're going at the pace of PBEM and can take your time with a turn. I'm surprised this game isn't more popular.

General Ludd · December 10, 2003, 17:17

The Nova patch looks like it fixes the game up alot, too. If we do this, perhaps we should use it. Or are there any other patches/mods availalbe?

Jon Miller · December 10, 2003, 17:40

I might be interested

for January

Jon Miler

dacole · December 10, 2003, 17:54

Yea don't think we will get this started until January. The reason it wasn't more popular was its extreme complication along with the problems that you mentioned. I would reccomend the use of one of the patches since they do fix some glareing errors. Nova is one of the most popular though others do exist. A simple google search should find them (that is unless the comunity has completly died which is possible)

Anyone who has contacts on the other forum sections (IE civ three civ two) and especially the team game sections of these please feel free to advertize as you see fit!

Sending people to this thread would probably be a good way to go about it

Sore Loser · December 11, 2003, 13:15

I recall a LOT of imbalance, but that was without the patch. Is the concept two factions against two factions, or what did you have in mind?

dacole · December 11, 2003, 13:23

haven't thought that far ahead, we could do that route though a good free for all might be more fun. Without the patch the game is very imbalanced you are correct why it didn't do all that well along with the incredible micromanagment that it takes to play the game well. Patch takes care of the imbalance hopefully team game will take care of the other.

General Ludd · December 11, 2003, 14:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Sore Loser
Is the concept two factions against two factions, or what did you have in mind?

By team he meant each house controled by a team of players. It wouldn't make much sense to make predertimed alliances like that... particularily since there are 5 houses. it should be free for all, with diplomacy.

GeneralTacticus · December 11, 2003, 20:55

Sounds itneresting - I still play EFS occasionally, and I love the setting. Count me in for this

Sore Loser · December 12, 2003, 04:15

Are you aiming to fill up all the houses or play against the AI?

Asmodean · December 12, 2003, 05:02

Would love to play, but have never tried this game before. I'll maybe play between Xmas and New Year, and if I like it, maybe I'll participate in the next team game

Asmodean

dacole · December 12, 2003, 12:58

Sore loser filling up the houses would be awesome AI is quite bad though if we had one or two of them might be OK. Asmodean you wouldn't be a wot freak would you

Sore Loser · December 16, 2003, 04:38

I'd definitely prefer a regular MP game without the AI over a team game against the AI. However, I'm not sure if I can devote enough time to it, I have a lot of catching up to do with my studies.

Asmodean · December 16, 2003, 04:42

Quote:

Originally posted by dacole

Asmodean you wouldn't be a wot freak would you

Oh yeah...I am. I have read them all at least 3 times.

Asmodean

Jamski · December 16, 2003, 05:10

If wot = Wheel of Time, then you're a real freak Asmo

Does anyone have the EotFS manual in PDF? mine is corrupted somehow, pages missing, text out of order etc. As a result I never really learnt to play the game properly.

-Jam

Asmodean · December 16, 2003, 05:53

There's an rtf manual available at the site of the canines that are somehow not on top of things.

Is that the one you have, Jamski?

Asmodean

Jamski · December 16, 2003, 16:59

I'll try to get that.

Nope... MINE is on the CD

oooh:

-Jam

GeneralTacticus · December 16, 2003, 20:27

The manual at the Site Which Must Not Be Named isn't very good either... the pages are in a weird order (I thinkyou would have to print it out and arrange it booklet-style for it to make sense), and in any case the manual isn't very good. A lot of the stuff in it is totally incorrect.

dacole · December 16, 2003, 21:12

Heh I love wheel of time come on now!! Great books haven't read them three times though only once...

dacole · December 16, 2003, 21:34

jam if you like I can scan the book I have not sure how much good it would do you though best thing is to search on the web see what other people have posted about the game.

Oh by the way how are the terraforming plans for AC comeing?

Jamski · December 17, 2003, 05:18

Yeah, I'll try and visit the unmentionable dogs.

(slowly)

-Jam

Jon Miller · December 17, 2003, 05:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Asmodean

Oh yeah...I am. I have read them all at least 3 times.

Asmodean

I have read the first ones ~10 times

haven't read the most recent one though, will pick it up at some point

Jon Miller
(hey, I was bored a lot when younger)

Jon Miller · December 17, 2003, 05:25

(by first ones I mean through 6, I think, later ones I only read like 4 times and number 9 (I think, not recentest but next recentist) I have only read once)

Jon Miller