Messages

166

Other Games / Re: Dave's Galaxy

« on: November 24, 2011, 02:09:31 AM »

For point 1 he is referring to the current state of the game, and is quite correct

For point 2 he makes a valid point, most games of this nature have some sort of system to try and provide balance between large and small players. Otherwise attracting new player becomes almost impossible because even if they aren't wiped out soon after starting, they quickly realise that there is no chance they will ever catch up to the established players, and leave out of frustration.

It seemed to me that he was offering a lame critique of my suggestions rather than talking about the "current state of the game." The whole point of my suggestions were to solve the problem of a player being invulnerable by building one scout.

The game already has these balance problems. The first day I signed up to player DG, it was immediately obvious that some players have more than a 10,000 times the planets, resources, and money than other players. The only way empires are defeated is if they leave the game, and that's ridiculous.

One way you can level the playing field a bit is to have a D&D like progression. Therefore the higher up you go the longer it takes to advance to the next level, rather than every round everyone goes up 1 level.

167

Other Games / Re: Dave's Galaxy

« on: November 23, 2011, 04:47:54 AM »

I think all of your suggestions are awful. It would help to be more specific but most of them make me want to throw up.

Anyway the problems are that
- player who is active every turn and has no life is invulnerable
- but completely removing the scout defence would cause big players to instantly win

I'm quite honored to be the latest person here you've taken a !@#$ on. You really know how to be a dick!

Your first point is wrong, and your second is inane.

1. Player who is active every turn is not invulnerable, because either a) getting a chance to capitulate the system if you've wiped out their fleets, or b) getting a chance to capitulate if the attacker has a large enough force to overcome the defenders force.

2. It's a territorial resources/conquest game. Whoever has the most resources wins. Unless you want to add technology differentiators (like the nuclear weapon was in WW2) that can be something to give an outmatched opponent the chance to have some other advantage.

168

Other Games / Re: Dave's Galaxy

« on: November 22, 2011, 06:08:51 AM »

What I don't want is say someone my size with 800 planets to be easily able to overwhelm players with only 100 planets. On some planets I can make fleets of 80 super battleship

No planet should ever be able to make 80 super battleships in one turn. That would be like the U.S. building 80 air craft carriers in a month.

Maybe there should be an upper limit into how many resources a planet can store? Or a limit to how quickly these larger ships can be built?

But even then, if you're playing a war game, and you have 800 factories and I only have 100, I'm going to lose everytime, no matter what the outcome.

What we need is more of a progressive scale (like D&D) where the higher up you go, the longer it takes you to advance to the next level.

Right now the only people are losing their systems are those that have quit the game.... and that's not good either.

169

Other Games / Re: Dave's Galaxy

« on: November 22, 2011, 02:38:15 AM »

We're discussing alternatives for the 1 scout defense over on the Google Group. My two ideas:

1. If in the course of invading a system, an attackers fleet wipes out a defending fleet, they should immediately get to begin planetary assault during the same COMBAT turn. That way there is no guarantee of victory by either the invader (who still has to get the system to capitulate) or the defender (who can still use each turn they're alive to build more ships, send in reinforcements, activate planetary defense, etc).

OR

2. Rather than counting a system's defending fleets and the planetary bombardment as separate battles (which doesn't make much sense anyway), count them as ONE big battle in which the Invader pitches his fleets against the defender's fleets & planetary defenses. Defending fleets lower the capitulation chance (the stronger the fleet, the lower the chance) for the system to capitulate. Or maybe the capitulation should be lowered to 0% (or halved?) while the planet has active fleets defending it.

Which one do you prefer?

170

Other Games / Re: Dave's Galaxy

« on: November 10, 2011, 03:43:16 AM »

The borders idea looks AWESOME. I would LOVE to be able to use that.

Oh and, Qyasogj.... I'm not only Vellos. I'm also Haman, the obsessive long-distance colonizer to your southeast.

Ah. So you're playing multiple empires! I wonder how many people are doing this? That explains your confidence in expanding so far so quickly, as you've got another much larger empire that's your main force. I'm necessarily playing a little more conservatively, because my empire is the only one.

Though to be honest, there's so many super powers here, that most matchups end up being David vs. Goliath. I'm right next to players that have over 200 TIMES the systems, fleets, money and population I do. If you sat down at a game of Risk and you started with one territory and the other guy has every territory on the map.... well there's not much you can do against that is there?

I like the idea of Borders as well, but so far Dave hasn't really responded to any of my suggestions, so I don't know what to think. The ability to draw a line on the map is already there. as I noticed people were using Named Routes to do borders for themselves. A border would just be something visible to other players.

171

Other Games / Re: Dave's Galaxy

« on: November 09, 2011, 07:12:04 AM »

Good to have you on the forums, Qyasogk. As you can see from the number of pages, we are quite into Dave's Galaxy.

As for your idea, I would prefer a border system based more upon the regional government ranges of planets, once they get to that society level. This is because outside of those planets able to support a regional government, any claims you have are hard to effectively cement. Sure, you can send in fleet, but your fleets have to travel for at least a couple days just to get outside the range of the regional government which really limits what you can do to enforce it.

I've been lurking for quite a while, so even though I haven't posted much, I'm familiar with most of you.

This all started out as a desire to enhance the player vs player relations beyond the default 3 states "War - Neutral - Allies" with the additional gradients of Tributary, Hostile, Unfriendly, Friendly and Protectorate. Right now you can't really attack someone without being at War with them. But if you had a player marked as Hostile and they were found inside your "territory" then you could attack without declaring war. But then you have to know where your territory is, and that means borders.

The idea behind having "borders" was mostly as a role play device, an expression of power and authority, either recognized by your neighbors or a point of contention. So the arguments about how borders are not real ARE valid, but besides the point. If India and Pakistan agree on a border, then there is peace. But if say both sides lay claim to Kashmir, then they COULD go to war, but what they've actually done is sort of cold war, where they support proxies to poke the other side in the eye, but neither side has been willing to go "all the way".

I have no problem saying that you have to have a Regional Government in the area to draw a border. Or that you have to have 10 contiguous star systems to be able to draw a border. Or that if you're in an area that has more than two "owners" then no one gets to draw a border. And if you've got a world inside my border, and we're both ok with that, then there's no reason why its a problem.

One of the reasons why I like DG is because its kind of like playing Risk only we're drawing the map as we play, and the map is effectively infinite in all directions. Only it does make the beginning of the game last forever!

172

Other Games / Re: Dave's Galaxy

« on: November 09, 2011, 12:15:13 AM »

At the moment I use routes to delineate the border I agreed with a massively bigger ally. It avoids me accidentally breaking our agreement, but it would of course be very useful to have a way to draw up something like that for the ally to see too. If it is an idea for the game it would be nice to have that as a separate option too thought, as I also use routes for other info now, which I don't necessarily want my ally to see.

Over on the DG Forum I came up with a proposal to do just that.


I also came up with a way of graphically differentiating fleet strengths, which I saw that a couple of you asked for.


I'm not sure I've convinced Dave that any of you guys are interested in this yet, so your contributions and feedback are welcome!