ACDG (2) Game Parameters

Googlie · May 8, 2003, 02:32

The factions:

Hive
University
Pirates
Consciousness
Drones
Believers
Angels

The map:

Large, somewhere between 50% and 70% water
Weak erosion (so good mountains and minerals)
Rare native life (don’t want to be fighting mindworms all game)
Dense cloud cover (for those juicy nut tiles and plentiful rivers)
Light, scattered fungus

Unity seed pods widely distributed, but tweaked to not produce AA’s or techs

The Rules of Engagement

(Only bold, italic checked)

Higher Goal – allow Victory by Transcendence
Total War – allow Victory by Conquest
Peace in our Time – allow Diplomatic Victory
Mine all Mine – allow Economic Victory
One for All – allow Cooperative Victory
Do or Die – don’t restart eliminated players
Look First – Flexible Starting Positions
Tech Stagnation
Spoils of War
Blind Research
Intense Rivalry
No Unity Survey
No Unity Scattering*
Bell Curve
Time Warp
Iron Man
Randomize faction leaders’ Personalities
Randomize faction leaders’ Social Agendas

* Tweaked to disallow Alien Artifacts and Technology Advances

All Game Preferences checked except:

Tutorial Messages
Always Investigate Monoliths

(Note that these settings can be changed in-game, but there should be concensus before doing so, as they affect all players)

The game start

You start with 3 Colony Pods and 3 scouts (Pirates with 2 Gunships)
The AI each has 3 prebuilt bases (allows me to tweak their Governors)

The Empath Guild has been disabled (It can be a game-breaker in a PBEM format)

The year is 2102 (to allow me to set the AI bases up in 2101 – the UoP still gets it’s choice of an extra free tech)

Corellion · May 8, 2003, 02:44

Looks great. Now we can begin our plans to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

Googlie · May 8, 2003, 03:10

Me again:

Can team/faction leaders send me an e-mail to:

googlie@canada.com

so that I have you and your faction on file, and can e-mail you the appropriate password (and tell me what it should be if there is one near and dear to your hearts)

G.

Jamski · May 8, 2003, 05:54

For the information of my Hive comrades I have sent the e-mail. I will PM you all with the password when Googlie OKs it. We need to choose a new glorious Chairman soon guys to replace Yang. We need our private forum too.

-Jam

Archaic · May 8, 2003, 07:34

Memo
To: University Faculty
From: Provost and Executive Chancellor Archaic

The email has been sent to Emperor CMN Googlie. We must have our faculty meeting ASAP to decide upon our free tech.

Maniac · May 8, 2003, 07:41

Since I seem to be the first Cyborg posting in this thread, I'll send Googlie the e-mail.

Hercules · May 8, 2003, 07:51

Have I actually beat Flameflash to the post this time. my email (holding position) to Googlie. Password to be forwarded after discussion with shipmates.

Googlie · May 8, 2003, 12:20

Status Report:

I have played about 30 years as the five factions (letting the AI play itself)

Resulting actions:

I have somewhat "declawed" the AI - they were getting far too powerful on the charts. But I also gave more specific instructions to their starting bases' Governors, and further tweaked their strategy decisions.

I have reduced the Pirates to just one foil - two were just too imbalancing (one side effect of disallowing AA's and Techs from the pods means that other events are more likely now, such as unit cloning - by 2130 my starting 2 foils had become 5, without my building any)

I scraped off some fungus from a couple of factions' territory and replaced them with some strategically placed special tiles to assist their development

I gave one of the factions a land bridge to another small land mass as it was territorially-challenged

I think we're about ready to roll

Jamski · May 8, 2003, 12:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
I think we're about ready to roll

YIPPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

-Jam

Maniac · May 8, 2003, 14:09

Now just wait on private fora...

Method · May 8, 2003, 15:25

mark posted somewhere in A/C that

Quote:

acdg changes coming soon

Micha · May 8, 2003, 16:39

Can´t wait to get started!

Drogue · May 8, 2003, 16:40

Nicely done Googlie, thank you mucho

However, I was kinda hoping we wouldn't know map composition, factions we'd be playing etc. since I thought a surprise would be realistic and fun. However well done, looks great

Hercules · May 8, 2003, 22:47

Don't worry we'll refloat that gunsloop.

Hercules · May 8, 2003, 22:57

Googlie stands by a gunsloop scuttled

Maniac · May 9, 2003, 14:41

Quote:

The Empath Guild has been disabled (It can be a game-breaker in a PBEM format)

A question out of curiosity: Would the Angels perform better if you gave them the Empath Guild from the start? Or would that just make them Target nr. 1 for all human players?

moomin · May 9, 2003, 15:22

I think your second sentence is an answer to your first one, Maniac. Giving the EG to an AI faction is the same thing as giving it to the human player who has the luck of ending up closest to that faction.

Googlie · May 9, 2003, 19:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Maniac
A question out of curiosity: Would the Angels perform better if you gave them the Empath Guild from the start? Or would that just make them Target nr. 1 for all human players?

3 reasons why not

1:- as described by moomin - they just become the #1 target, with advantage to her immediate neighbors
2:- gives the Angels automatic infiltration on everyone, with the resulting techshare implications - vastly overpowering
3:- Roze calls a Council meeting first turn (remember she and Miriam have their 3 bases established) thus giving commlinks to all players

Thus I decided to just disable it - so you'll need to probe for information on other factions and work for voting majority through population growth

G.

Voltaire · May 9, 2003, 20:03

Any news regarding the private forums?

Method · May 9, 2003, 20:15

no, not yet. maybe if we pester markos enough he'll go faster?

Hercules · May 9, 2003, 20:44

Please Mr Markos. The Pirates need you.

MrWhereItsAt · May 10, 2003, 23:01

...and things became rather rapidly elite again. I don't feel experienced enough to participate in smaller team games.

/me sighs

Well, the last game was good. Good luck interesting non-veterans in this idea.

Drogue · May 11, 2003, 07:37

I'm a non-veteran (I've never done PBEM before

) and I'm interesting. But I agree, it will be hard interesting n00bs in this. We can try though, it's easier than a normal PBEM IMHO.

MrWhereItsAt · May 11, 2003, 09:33

Is there sufficient interest for a regular Democracy game, just with self-imposed limitations, eg no Secret Projects to be built?

Why was the decision for this style of game anyway? There's plenty of challenge left that we haven't explored with one game. This just doesn't sound as enticing to me any more.

Drogue · May 11, 2003, 09:51

Well, we voted. I guess we thought it was different, had more variety, and would be good for those who participated inthe last one, but would get bored with another one. Personally, I don't like self-imposed limitations. However if you can get a CMN to boost the AI, a single player would be good.

moomin · May 11, 2003, 13:55

There's also the fact that political intrigue is already more exciting - it is more interesting playing your ideology against those of others.

Static Universe · May 11, 2003, 16:23

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
...and things became rather rapidly elite again. I don't feel experienced enough to participate in smaller team games.

* MrWhereItsAt sighs

Well, the last game was good. Good luck interesting non-veterans in this idea.

I'm a relatively inexperienced non-veteran as well. I'm using this DG as an excellent opportunity to learn more about the game and PBEM in general.

I think it's worth pointing out that you can get more from a Democracy Game than just post count.

Main_Brain · May 12, 2003, 05:34

mhh spam uhhh I mean Posts *drool*

MrWhereItsAt · May 12, 2003, 08:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Static Universe

I think it's worth pointing out that you can get more from a Democracy Game than just post count.

Oh I know all of this, I was heavily involved at times for the last game. What was fantastic for me was being a Minister where there were so many others to point out mistakes or new strategies to try that I didn't know about. This allowed me (and others, I imagine) to learn the intricacies of the game, a part at a time, with a safety net. With small teams like this, there will not be the safety net, and the expertise of so many will not be available.

I dunno, it just seems like this format assumes you know far more about the game than I garnered from my few years of on-off playing and one Single player game. I'd like to learn more SMAC and SMAX, just that I don't see this as being anything but frustrating and rather daunting, more so than where we are all presenting a united front.

Jamski · May 12, 2003, 08:46

There's no reason you can't learn from being defeated by a better tactic used by another team. This shouldn't be frustrating at all. Every team has at least two people who know thier way around the game.

It would be nice to have you involved though MWIA. Perhaps you could have a role like Trip's in the current PtWDG. You could be the official monitor of all 5 factions and keeper of the fairplayness. Someones should probably do it, someone who can be trusted...

-Jam