Dave's Galaxy

[squishymaster]

I can't believe you found us, let alone made an account to chat.  Epic.

P.S. 45 pages :)

P.P.S. Check out Battlemaster  ;D

[Dav3xor]

I can't believe you found us, let alone made an account to chat.  Epic.

P.S. 45 pages :)

P.P.S. Check out Battlemaster  ;D

It's what I get for vanity googling.

Oh!  another thing -- Opera support.  It used to work, now I'm going to have to figure out why it's broken.

[Nathan]

Balance is really hard to get right.

Agreed, and it depends what you want for your game. If you want people to be able to play just as well as a trader, a colonist or an aggressor then you need to balance things out for that (I have some ideas, but I'd need to properly sit down and work through them for all the effects they might have). If you'd prefer there to be more wars, then keep things as they are as it encourages people to fight each other (however do something about new player protection). If you'd prefer less wars and more colonisation, then increase the price of ships and number of people per arcs.

I think you might also need to do something about player retention. I've seen loads of planets sitting at level 52 and then get conquered by someone big. Without figures, I'm only going off what I see which may or may not be close to the truth.

I want to allow purchasing of resources on the local market if you have the quatloos (i.e. you'd be able to build as many ships as you have quatloos to pay for the stuff to build them), but I haven't done this yet.

That sounds very nice and I look forward to it. It'll definitely encourage more people to trade (however probably a low impact).

It's what I get for vanity googling.

Have we massaged your ego enough yet? :P

[De-Legro]

I'm not sure if this goes against the spirit of the game, but some sort of limitation on just how many planets you can control might make the balance for new/smaller players a bit easier. Starting right next to a player with 500+ planets is very intimidating, and also limits your choices for expansion close by.

[squishymaster]

I played in a game where there was a waste rate for every planet over a certain amount.  So your first X planets produce normally and then every 1 past X they produced Y% less.

[De-Legro]

Deltra Quadrant : Horizons does something like this. There are two mechanics, the first is a restriction on how many planets you can colonise via non-violent means. Once you hit this limit you can conquer planets from other players, but it affects the efficiency of your empire to do so.

[egamma]

It's what I get for vanity googling.

Oh!  another thing -- Opera support.  It used to work, now I'm going to have to figure out why it's broken.

Ha--we're #8 on Google for "Dave's Galaxy." There must be something wrong with us.

Dave, are you interested in playing BM? Actually, there's Battlemaster, War Islands, and Spell Master. I bet you will like War Islands.

[Gustav Kuriga]

We won't stop bugging you until you do, so you might as well give in and join us. Join us, Dave, Join us. Become one with the Battlemaster Hivemind.

[Dav3xor]

We won't stop bugging you until you do, so you might as well give in and join us. Join us, Dave, Join us. Become one with the Battlemaster Hivemind.

Haha, I've been posting enough on their forum, they'll probably start accusing me of poaching.  So maybe I should.

I'm not a huge fan of arbitrary imposed limitations, having a maximum amount of planets you can have isn't my way.  I do like the 'damping factor with more planets' idea though, the more planets you have, the larger the bureaucracy would be, the less surplus you'd have on each planet.

[Shizzle]

I'm not familiar enough with the game, but how about rebellions? Forcing even large players to keep an eye on their own territory will also limit expansion. Maybe a factor like in Total War, where distance from the capital reduces control?

[Tom]

I was googling for references to the game this morning, and I finally came across this thread.  44 pages of messages!

From one game creator to the other: Welcome to our forums, hope you like it. I hope your surprise was a pleasant one. You've written a game I've wanted to write for quite some time, and much better than I would've. It's quite fun to play, and if the BM players can help you out in any way, I'm sure everyone here would be happy to do so.

Increasing the number of people per arc would probably be really helpful (I'm happy with the number of arcs you can produce in a turn), that would speed up the population curve quite a bit.  Maybe up it to...  2000 people?

Definitely. I have a couple colonies that are in the 30s in civilization, but in the low five digits in population, because I started them with 1-3 arcs and never boosted them.

[Tom]

I could use some help against this jahroen guy, he's sending 50 cruisers at my home planet. My planetary defenses will take most of them down, but I'm not certain I can kill them all.

[Sacha]

Mmm.. another peeve I have is that you don't have much control over what your trade fleets buy and sell. Most of the time I find myself re-routing fleets, because they'll snatch steel from my home planet, or take food away from my colonies. Perhaps giving them a basic buy order could help? As in, sending out a fleet to procure steel from your colonies and transporting it to your home planets, for example.

[D`Este]

I could use some help against this jahroen guy, he's sending 50 cruisers at my home planet. My planetary defenses will take most of them down, but I'm not certain I can kill them all.

A few of my merchant ships went poof...just can't see the attacking fleet...so rather curious what will happen..

[Nathan]

I do like the 'damping factor with more planets' idea though, the more planets you have, the larger the bureaucracy would be, the less surplus you'd have on each planet.

Be careful you don't put players off expanding completely. They might get to a point where they think "why expand?" in which case, that means there's no need for war or colonisation.

I could use some help against this jahroen guy, he's sending 50 cruisers at my home planet. My planetary defenses will take most of them down, but I'm not certain I can kill them all.

Not having any ships out and about right now, I can't do anything, sorry :( I think the best thing you can do is stock up resources on your home planet for a couple of turns and then build a big fleet when he gets close. Hopefully your Planetary Defences will destroy enough that your ships can cover the rest.

Slapsticks might be able to send some over, he's only a few day's travel away.